The plan to bring a Metrolink train from Ventura County to Santa Barbara and Goleta has been derailed.
A series of delays stemming from prolonged contract discussions forced The Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency, LOSSAN, to pull the plug.
For the past two years, multiple agencies had been working together to bring additional morning commuter service to the South Coast on a Metrolink train.
“It’s now likely that this pathway would negatively impact LOSSAN’s ability to implement our planned service expansion,” said Jason Jewell, managing director of LOSSAN, at a November board meeting.
Instead, the LOSSAN board of directors has opted to provide the train service itself from Ventura County all the way to San Luis Obispo. The LOSSAN board made the decision in November. The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments is set to discuss the matter at its Thursday meeting.
The decision marks an end to what was once bright-eyed optimism about bringing Metrolink to the South Coast. SBCAG and the Ventura County Transportation Commission wanted to bring a morning train from Moorpark, with stops in Camarillo, Oxnard, Ventura, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara and Goleta.
The idea was for LOSSAN to subcontract with Metrolink for a pilot program, meant to last a year.
That was early 2025.
Aaron Bonfilio, director of rail and transit programs for SBCAG, said contract delays affected the launch of the Metrolink program. Union Pacific, which owns the railroad tracks, could not even review the Metrolink proposal until after it completed its $85 billion merger with Norfolk Southern Railway.
As a result, Union Pacific indicated to LOSSAN that it would not be able to assess the Metrolink proposal until early 2026.
Then, in October of 2025, LOSSAN received notice of a $27 million Restoration and Enhancement Grant award from the Federal Railroad Administration to restore the 11th, 12th and 13th daily round trip from Los Angeles to San Diego—fully restoring service levels to what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
LOSSAN has already restarted two of those routes from Los Angeles to San Diego, while the final route would deploy a train from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo and returning to San Diego. Under the new LOSSAN plan, the new restored route would roll through the Goleta train station at 8:11 a.m.
According to Bonfilio the LOSSAN service, which would be on a Pacific Surfliner Amtrak train, could start as early as April 2026. He added that, from a practical standpoint, marketing will be easier under the current plan and that there are economies of scale with having only one operator, rather than both the Pacific Surfliner and Metrolink.
Under the Metrolink plan, SBCAG and VCTC would have split the $450,000 in start-up costs. Using Pacific Surfliner, Bonfilio said there would be no start-up costs, though the annual operating costs for the program would be about $2 million.
One benefit of Metrolink, he said, is that it already provides frequent commuter service in Southern California and that it is automatically eligible for annual federal funding. By contrast, LOSSAN must go through the process of requesting funding with the FTA every year.
The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner travels along the 351-mile LOSSAN Corridor, connecting San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Luis Obispo. It’s the busiest state-supported Amtrak route and the second busiest intercity rail corridor in the U.S., serving 2 million riders annually, according to its website.
For nearly two decades officials have tried to bring a commuter train to Santa Barbara in tandem with widening Highway 101 to add a commuter lane from Ventura to Santa Barbara, a process that is now nearly complete. It is unclear how popular a morning train to Santa Barbara and Goleta would be, but officials hope that it could reduce the number of people who drive into the area from Ventura County, thereby freeing up Highway 101.
