June 2018

24 25 METROLINK mission. Metrolink has seven rail lines on 388 miles of its own tracks and a total of 538 miles of track that it shares with other rail systems: The Ven- tura County line runs from East Ventura to Los Angeles with 12 stations; the Antelope Valley Line runs from Lancaster to Los Angeles with 11 stations; the San Bernardino Line runs from San Bernardino to Los Angeles with 13 stations; the Riverside Line runs from Riverside to Los Angeles with 7 stations; the Orange County Line runs from Oceanside (in San Diego County) to Los Ange- les with 15 stations; the Inland Empire-Orange County Line runs from San Bernardino to Oceans- ide (in San Diego County) with 15 stations; and the 91 Line runs from South Perris to Los Angeles via Fullerton with 12 stations. Average weekday ridership on Metrolink’s seven lines is approximately 45,000, who trav- el approximately 441 million passenger miles per year, making it the eighth-busiest commuter rail system in the U.S. by annual ridership. The Metrolink fleet consists of 55 locomotives and 258 passenger cars. It has an annual operating budget of $243 million, with revenues of $100.6 million, plus subsidies from its member counties (except Ventura), State Rail Bond funds, State Transit Assistance funds, State Highway Account funds, State Transit Capital Improvement funds, and Federal Transit Administration Capital funds, to the tune of $142.4 million. It is governed by the 11-member, Southern California Regional Rail Authority Board - four members from Los Angeles, two each from Orange, Riverside, and San Ber- nardino, and one from Ventura. Metrolink has about 250 in-house employees at its headquarters in the iconic Los Angeles Union Station in downtown L.A., and maintains four large contracts with outside entities: one with Amtrak for rail operations; one with VTMI for rail maintenance and construction; one with Mass Electric for signal communication system main- tenance; and one with Bombardier for car fleet maintenance, for a total workforce of about 1,000. Arthur Leahy, CEO of Metrolink, and former head of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, believes that the most important benefit of the Metrolink system is that