Taken for a Ride

Like that old "death and taxes" line, here's a 5-1/2% hit on you Metrolink riders: Metrolink to raise fares.  From the Register's website,

Fares will increase on average 5.5 percent, beginning July 1.  Metrolink's board of directors today approved the increase in response to rising operational costs, especially the price of diesel fuel.

And does it strike anyone that this isn't a lot of traffic for such a large and expensive system:

According to Metrolink statistics, Orange County residents take nearly 11,000 trips a weekday on the locomotive-commuter railway. That equates to 5,500 residents taking roundtrips a weekday.

Comments

[calwatch]

And they want to spend a billion dollars on this in Measure M, when when the bus system is starved for funds and doesn't cover the whole county? I don't get it.

[calwatch]

5000 cars not on the 5 (and not all of them are "not on the 5", nor are they on the same segment) is nothing. We have plenty of carpool lanes, let's increase the occupancy to three passenger to make them free flowing, and run buses on them.