Amid rising gas prices, more in L.A. turning to commuter rail

Metrolink recorded its highest-ever number of riders in a single day Tuesday -- 50,232 -- a 15.6% increase over the volume on the Tuesday of the same week last year. Metro Rail ridership last month shot up 6% over May 2007, with the downtown L.A.-to-Pasadena Gold Line also setting an all-time ridership record, said Dave Sotero, a Metro spokesman.

Meanwhile, Caltrans officials said Thursday that traffic on California freeways dropped 1.5% over last year -- the equivalent of a billion fewer miles traveled, said spokesman Derrick Alatorre.

In Los Angeles and Ventura counties combined, Caltrans' traffic sensors found a slight decline in freeway traffic: from 91.7 million miles traveled in March to 91.4 million in May, the most recent data available.

Alatorre said Caltrans engineers expect the downward trend to continue during the summer months, as gas prices remain high. "Statistically speaking, that is not a lot of difference in miles, but it is a lot of gas," he said.

Spikes in gas prices have often brought increases in public transit ridership and even small reductions in traffic -- only to see motorists get back on the road when prices drop.

But the increasingly crowded rail lines are a marked contrast in a region where the car has long been king -- and remains so even with the record gas prices.

Some commuters said Thursday that prices are now so high that they would consider using rail more frequently.

Thair Peterson, an employee at the Metropolitan Water District, switched to using Metro just over a year ago when gas prices hit a "tipping point" of $3.30 a gallon.

"It was a no-brainer," Peterson said, after arriving at Union Station from his Los Feliz residence. Now, he says, gas prices would have to drop below $2 a gallon for him to consider commuting by car again.

California's average gas price jumped 15.5 cents last week to $4.588 a gallon, the U.S. Energy Department said this week. In the last month, California's average has increased nearly 64 cents a gallon, while the U.S. average has risen 29 cents.

The shift in behavior extends beyond Southern California.