The State has awarded an $82 million grant to enhance the Pacific Surfliner and commuter rail service, which runs through SLO County.
The sum includes $66 million for new, double track and station improvements, $15 million for lease of new railcars and $1 million for planning studies.
A phrase readers may have heard in San Luis Obispo Council of Government circles is “LOSSAN,” the name of the agency that manages the rail corridor for Los Angeles, San Diego and San Luis Obispo.
The funds are for a, “package of projects that will help expand and improve passenger rail service in Southern California,” announced the California State Transportation Agency.
The funding is part of the 2016 Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program or TIRCP, which will provide a total of $390 million to 14 projects statewide that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, specifically by improving rail and transit services. The TIRCP Program is funded by auction proceeds from the California Air Resource Board’s Cap-and-Trade Program.
The LOSSAN Agency submitted a TIRCP application in April 2016 along with the San Diego Association of Governments, the North County Transit District and the Orange County Transportation Authority. The app was whimsically titled “All Aboard: Transforming Southern California Rail Travel.”
“We appreciate CalSTA’s support of this program,” LOSSAN Agency Chairman David Golonski said, “which will allow much-needed improvements to the second-busiest intercity passenger rail corridor in the nation. This program of projects will result in more frequent and integrated passenger rail service, improved on-time performance and safety, and a better overall passenger experience.”
Replacement of five railway bridges, station and safety enhancements, and signal and switch upgrades were all part of their wish list.
That also included $15 million for a lease of new passenger rail cars, and $1 million for planning studies to improve coordination in the LOSSAN rail corridor.
The corridor stretches 351 miles through the counties of San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo and includes 41 stations with more than 150 daily passenger trains and more than 70 daily freight trains making it the second busiest intercity passenger rail corridor in the United States .
More than 2.8 million people ride Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner every year.
– Camas Frank
