San Luis Obispo County transportation leaders say we need better transportation options, so they’re working to improve passenger rail services.
Under a multi-county approach led by the Coast Rail Coordinating Council (CRCC), the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG) and CRCC county partners were awarded $63 million for coordinated improvements along the Coast Rail Line through Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara counties.
“This is our favorite train station in California by far,” traveler Barrett Reed said of the San Luis Obispo Train Station.
Reed rides the train from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo once a month.
“We come up as a family a couple of times a year for fun and we can't really go past SLO,” Barett said.
Currently, there are no state-funded passenger rail services north of San Luis Obispo.
“We would love to see this extended but right now this is as far as it goes,” Barett said.
Another passenger traveling from San Diego to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving said it's normally an eight-hour trip for him on both the train and the bus. He would like it if there were just one mode of transportation to take him back home.
“We have one train that comes through the region. We need an early morning northbound departure from SLO and a mid-day departure northbound to get to the Bay Area,” said Peter Rodgers, SLOCOG Executive Director.
He added that with the new funding, “We will be able to bring more passenger rail services to the corridor that don't exist today and we'll be able to use these resources to build the capital improvements to keep trains on time and provide more options for people. Right now, there's not enough options.”
Two trains come into San Luis Obispo daily — the Amtrak Coast Starlight which is federally funded and runs between Los Angeles and Seattle, and the Pacific Surfliner which is state-funded and only runs between San Luis Obispo and San Diego.
Rodgers says this leaves a gap in passenger rail services with no services north of San Luis Obispo that are funded by the state.
“We need options and the roads are filling up. There isn't enough funding to add roads on the freeway so we see rail transportation as getting an increasing share of the traveling public,” Rodgers said.
The goal is to enhance infrastructure, boost connectivity, and improve mobility on the Central Coast.
SLOCOG hopes to wrap up these projects by 2028.
