Well, the NCTD (North County Transit District – San Diego / North County) Sprinter launched service today. For those of you not aware, this is the new light rail train running from Escondido to Oceanside in San Diego, California’s North County region. It’s a boondoggle plain and simple and is a terrible waste of tax payer dollars. It only has a “…27% fare box recovery system wide…” (that means it’s subsidized at 73%! – even though they say “that’s pretty average for a transit system”. sheesh) As anticipated, it’s absolutely useless to me, the working commuter looking to take advantage of light rail to get to and from work. Here’s a little insight as to why. For me, time is most important, then cost. Since the cost of a coaster pass after work subsidies, discounts, and pre-tax money is ~equal to the cost of gas/maint on my car, it really just boils down to time for me.
Bottom line, the Sprinter->Coaster route costs me $1 more/month, I’d lose my freedom while I’m at work to go out to lunch or whatever, and my commute would double from an average of 2 hrs by car to an average of 4 hrs by rail. For that, I get about 60 minutes of time on the train to read or whatever each way and A LOT less time with my 3 young boys due to the extra 2 hours of commute time every day. The project is tens of millions over budget, years late, and you guessed it, way more than $1 short.
I’ve built a spreadsheet of what my schedule would look like (as of 3/9/08) which you can access by clicking the thumbnail at the bottom of the page and which should apply to anyone looking for a similar commute from San Marcos to Sorrento Valley…but first, a few notes:
- The Coaster Connection (Route 972), even though it stops right outside my office, has limited hours… so for the two options that require me to walk, I’ve calculated 2.3 miles (via Google Maps) and a 20 min mile (note likely for me – but again, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt) for a total of 46 minutes to walk to/from the station if I miss the shuttle.
- It takes me 10 minutes to get from my house in North San Marcos (near Richland Elementary) to the Civic Center Sprinter Station, park my car, and get to the platform (if I really rush!)
- Make sure you note the wonderful layovers I have sitting in the Oceanside Transit Station
- A Monthly Coaster Pass – to best price option for my rail commute is a 3 zone monthly Coaster Pass at $142/month. I pay $27 post-tax, my employer (rated the best in San Diego by Fortune Magazine for such reasons as mass transit subsidies) pays $28.75. I pay the remaining $86.25 with pretax dollars (which, since my net tax is ~20%, saves me another $17.25.) So my net cost on a monthly rail pass that works for my commute is $96.
- My car – I drive a Toyota Prius. I average 48 miles to the gallon (proof here). It’s 25.3 miles one way from my home in San Marcos to work in Sorrento Valley. Without traffic, it’s 36 mins door to door. With traffic, it averages 60 minutes but often varies to 50 minutes with light traffic or 70 minutes with heavy traffic. Gas to/from work costs me $75/month at $3.50/gal. Maintenance (on a prepaid maintenance package) runs $20/month with the mileage I drive. Total, $95 month ($1 less than the coaster pass)
- Why a Prius? – I bought it the day they approved the carpool sticker legislation. Truth be told, I rarely have use for the stickers because the Sandag bureaucrats haven’t seen fit to put carpool lanes along my commute route (by 2012, supposedly…we’ll see if the stickers are still valid by then…guessing so with all the hybrid-loving legislators in Sacramento!) I’m fed up enough as it is with the lack of public-use lanes being built..but for the carpool lanes I’m supposedly paying for not being in either? come on…
All in all, as stated, the train does nothing for me except annoy me with its loud horn (they said it wouldn’t be loud – oops, it is – I’m hearing it as I write this late on Sunday night from the San Marcos/Richland area), slow service (takes ~45 minutes on average to travel between Oceanside and San Marcos), and now forces me to take a back road from my house to I-15 to/from work to avoid the traffic snarls on local San Marcos city streets thanks to the Sprinter coming through every 30 minutes (and that’s the only thing accounting for a 5 minute average increase each way in my commute time which I’ve already factored in to my time estimates. Thank goodness I don’t have to cross the tracks like many others do.)
I think it’s truly sad that I, a standard commuter working standard hours don’t have the ability to take a train from near my house to near my work and not have it cost me DOUBLE IN COMMUTE TIME. Arguably, I should be best slated to take advantage of the Sprinter service based on where I live and my commute. North County Transit District – you’ve done an outstanding job completely wasting my tax payer dollars.
If you click on the spreadsheet thumbnail below, you’ll see all of the times and how ridiculous they are.
-Mike
