San Joaquin Valley trains continue to attract more riders

Enthusiasm for passenger trains has not lost steam in the Central Valley despite people driving cars more.

Thanks to dropping gas prices, people were expected to drive 4.2 percent more during the year-end holidays in 2014 than a year earlier, AAA said. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in Modesto stood at $2.47 Wednesday – 40 cents cheaper than a month ago and more than a dollar less than a year ago.

When gas prices fall, people traditionally drive more and catch trains less. But recent numbers posted by both rail companies in this area suggest that trains are more than holding their own.

Ridership on the Altamont Corridor Express, which spirits Valley commuters from depots in Stockton and Lathrop toward the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, is up about 17 percent compared with 2013. Amtrak’s San Joaquin corridor, catering more to leisure travelers, carried 4 percent more passengers during Thanksgiving week compared with a year earlier.

“More and more Californians are increasingly seeing train travel as a smart option,” said Malcolm Dougherty, director of the California Department of Transportation, in a news release. His agency manages Amtrak’s San Joaquins, which run from Bakersfield through Modesto to San Francisco and Sacramento, although local leaders are assuming control over those lines.

Caltrans also oversees the Pacific Surfliner corridor, which set ridership records over Thanksgiving with an 11 percent rise. That line goes from San Luis Obispo to San Diego via Los Angeles.

Local leaders hope to extend ACE service to Modesto by 2018 and to Turlock and Merced a few years later.

“We have been experiencing year-over-year double-digit growth for over three years,” said Stacey Mortensen, executive director of the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, which runs ACE. Perhaps people are tiring of fighting traffic, which increasingly clogs freeways as people drive more, she said.

But the popularity of trains seems less tied to gas prices than in years past, Mortensen said Wednesday. Passengers have reported being swayed more, she said, by the “value of productive time.”

“Whether it’s social time, work time, bill-paying time, reading time or sleeping time, riders want to be able to do things they cannot do while driving,” she said.

Nearly 99 million Americans traveled this holiday season, with about 91 percent taking vehicles, the AAA said.

“While the economy continues to improve at an uneven pace, it seems more Americans are looking forward with increasing consumer confidence, rather than looking back at the recession,” said Marshall Doney, AAA president, in a notice.

Californians on average paid $2.64 for a gallon of gas Thursday, down $1.01 from a year ago and $2.04 less than the all-time average high of $4.68 in October 2012, the AAA said.

However, gas prices are expected to jump about 10 cents per gallon with California’s cap-and-trade program going into effect this week to regulate carbon emissions.

This story was originally published January 1, 2015 at 6:02 PM with the headline "San Joaquin Valley trains continue to attract more riders."