Pacific Surfliner Stations Ridership

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johnny.menhennet

johnny.menhennet

Conductor
Joined
Apr 17, 2011
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1,425
Location
Solana Beach, CA
I was looking through some of the state fact sheets and came across California's. I was very happy that for Solana Beach, it is now the busiest intermediate station apart from Irvine! We passed up Fullerton and Irvine surged to a whopping 664,000. I am happy with these major station gains, although I expect that they will take a sharp turn south when the 2012 fact sheet comes out. Even with the ridership decreases, the north-of-LA stations should all see increases in pax loads. They are having a much higher gain than the southern end, which is mostly responsible for the losses. So with a little sarcasm, SOL got pretty lucky in the fact sheet.
 
Johnny, what do you think was the major factor in the increase in ridership of SOL??
 
SOL is almost as bad as SOB for South Bend, IN. Who wants to ride with an "SOB" hat check above their seat? LOL!
 
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I'm going to speculate that this ridership situation is because Solana Beach gets more ridership from north-of-Oceanside than San Diego. With Coaster handling traffic between Oceanside and San Diego and Metrolink handling traffic between Oceanside and LA, and *both being cheaper than the Surfliner*, you could have lots of other stations be very busy but have Solana Beach be the second-busiest for *Amtrak* traffic.
 
zephyrstar said:
SOL is almost as bad as SOB for South Bend, IN. Who wants to ride with an "SOB" hat check above their seat? LOL!
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Almost equally bad are those getting off the Sunset in Pomona with the seat check identifying them as a "POS".
 
Solana Beach has high ridership for two reasons:

--It's the station nearest UC San Diego and handles large numbers of students who go home to Orange and LA counties during the weekend.

--It's also the closest station for the many San Diego northern suburbanites in the high-tech field who commute to Irvine and the many tech companies in southern Orange County. I bet the Irvine-Solana Beach figures, if available, would be very high.
 
Who comes up with these codes? You'd think they would try to avoid acronyms with obvious negative connotations - though the likes of SOL, SOB, and POS would seem to indicate they don't. When I was on the Capitol Limited a couple months ago, I saw "SOB" and "SOBx2" tags - thought that was pretty funny. Haven't seen such tags on the Surfliners, though I've definitely been through SOL a number of times. Haven't been SOL in SOL, though, but I guess if you missed the last train of the night you would be!

I do think UCSD is the most likely explanation for SOL's high ridership numbers, though - it is the closest station to campus (going to SAN would be backtracking, anyway) and easy to reach by public transit from there. College campuses tend to drive Amtrak ridership in a lot of places - for example, the two largest-ridership stations in Michigan are ARB (University of Michigan) and KAL (Western Michigan University).
 
Why did nobody mention the fairgrounds as part of our ridership??? They probably account for near 60,000 of our riders. I wound't be surprised if were higher. I don't think that UCSD actually has as large a presence as you guys may think, but you're right that it's closest for a lot of people. I know other riders from Santee and Lakeside that drive all the way to Solana to board. In general though, our town is very rail-friendly, and we are I think more aware and conscience of its presence than are many in say Encinitas.
 
johnny.menhennet said:
Why did nobody mention the fairgrounds as part of our ridership??? They probably account for near 60,000 of our riders. I wound't be surprised if were higher. I don't think that UCSD actually has as large a presence as you guys may think, but you're right that it's closest for a lot of people. I know other riders from Santee and Lakeside that drive all the way to Solana to board. In general though, our town is very rail-friendly, and we are I think more aware and conscience of its presence than are many in say Encinitas.
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Because the fairgrounds/race track ridership covers only two months out of the year, and by itself would not be anywhere near sufficient to drive Solana Beach ridership figures to the level that you say it now has
 
because said:
johnny.menhennet said:
Why did nobody mention the fairgrounds as part of our ridership??? They probably account for near 60,000 of our riders. I wound't be surprised if were higher. I don't think that UCSD actually has as large a presence as you guys may think, but you're right that it's closest for a lot of people. I know other riders from Santee and Lakeside that drive all the way to Solana to board. In general though, our town is very rail-friendly, and we are I think more aware and conscience of its presence than are many in say Encinitas.
Click to expand...
Because the fairgrounds/race track ridership covers only two months out of the year, and by itself would not be anywhere near sufficient to drive Solana Beach ridership figures to the level that you say it now has
Click to expand...
Yes I know I was exaggerating a little, but over the 7 weeks there are a lot. I would say there are a good 2,000 on opening day alone that ride Amtrak (so 4,000 once u factor in RT). Other weekend days see maybe half that... you gotta give me 35,000 at least
 
jb64 said:
Shanghai said:
WhoozOn1st said:
zephyrstar said:
SOL is almost as bad as SOB for South Bend, IN. Who wants to ride with an "SOB" hat check above their seat?
Click to expand...
I'd have to be one SOL SOB for an SJ ride to Bakersfield to be a BFD.
Click to expand...
Good one Patrick, do you care to tell us what BFD stands for??
Click to expand...
Ask Joe Biden.
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Give the lady a cigar!

For those who might not get the reference, BFD is common shorthand for Big -- Deal.
 
PS ridership is higher in the Summer (no big surprise). If you look at the reports, it seems there is an increase in ridership from the past few years. This years numbers seem iffy right now but we still have a few more months to go.
 
Friday afternoon train 785 boards hundreds of people at SOL; most seem to be college students.
 
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