On the last day of September, Kate Callen mailed a letter to Ed Gallo, the Escondido councilman who doubles as board chairman of the North County Transit District.
Recently hired as the CSU San Marcos communications manager, Callen is a pro writer with a sharply tuned sense of right and wrong, as well as the ridiculous. You have to like her style.
“I am a lifelong mass transit user,” Callen began, “and I'm writing to share a first-time experience with the North County Transit District that has soured me on rail service in San Diego.
“I relied on mass transit in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington D.C., and I have used it as much as possible in California since 1987. Last Wednesday, I decided to try out the Coaster/Sprinter commute from downtown San Diego to CSU San Marcos. The 6:33 northbound Coaster ride was perfect, but when we arrived in Oceanside just after 7:30, the 7:33 eastbound Sprinter had already left. During the half-hour wait for the next Sprinter, other passengers told me this is a regular occurrence.
“It seems that the Coaster and the Sprinter are like an IBM and a Mac: stubbornly incompatible at the Oceanside juncture. As you may know, or will learn from their schedules, each train is slated to depart from Oceanside just before, right as, or just after the train is slated to arrive there. That is a surefire recipe for missed connections and unhappy riders. When I asked transit employees why the two lines aren't synchronized, they said there were 'too many variables' to work out.
“I had intended to be a regular NCTD rider and to urge colleagues and friends to use the system, especially given how hard CSUSM worked to help launch the Sprinter and how much we encourage students, faculty and staff to use it. But the combination of dysfunctional schedules and poor customer service means I will only ride NCTD when my car is in the shop, and I really can't recommend it.”
Callen is your ideal train rider. Her self-interest and social conscience dovetail on the rails.
With her self-described “East Coast mentality,” she's willing, even happy, to park her car and spend marginally more money and time getting to work so long as she can use the train time profitably.
On her poorly coordinated commute last month, for example, Callen read several chapters of Cal State San Marcos President Karen Haynes' book, “Affecting Change: Social Workers in the Public Arena.” (It's good to know how the new boss thinks.)
But adding a half-hour of platform time to a scheduled two-hour trip – or an hour to a four-hour round-trip – proved to be Callen's personal tipping point.
“I was shocked,” she told me, that the North County system could be so ineptly managed. It's “inconceivable” that the connections of an East Coast commuter rail would be so badly synchronized, she said.
The irony is pretty rich.
In trying to do the right thing for the environment and set an example to other campus employees, Callen winds up a scathing NCTD critic.
Her message?
No working person should gamble on Oceanside's malfunctioning junction.
Bottom line, she's off the train – and thinking about buying a Prius.
“It's not as easy as it looks to change schedules,” explained Tom Kelleher, NCTD's spokesman.
He laughed – somewhat mordantly, but he laughed – when I read him Callen's IBM/Mac metaphor.
The Coaster's times have to be coordinated with Metrolink arrivals in Oceanside as well as Amtrak routes, Kelleher said. Lots of competing pieces to the puzzle.
To its credit, however, NCTD isn't shrugging off its “connectivity” problem. There's help on the way, Kelleher said.
On Oct. 16, NCTD is holding a public hearing in its board room to discuss significant, if slight, schedule changes for two-thirds of the Coaster trains.
If adopted by the NCTD board, the tweaked times would go into effect Oct. 27. (The Sprinter's Oceanside departure times – three and 33 minutes after the hour – will remain the same.)
What does this mean for Callen and her Prius order?
Under the revised schedule, the Coaster will leave San Diego at 6:31 instead of 6:33 and arrive in Oceanside at 7:32, a full minute earlier – and a minute before the eastbound Sprinter leaves.
In those 60 ticking seconds, commuters can sprint to the idling Sprinter, Kelleher figures.
This sounds rather dicey – one (New York?) minute is cutting a train connection pretty fine – but that's the best that could be worked out under existing constraints.
As we were wrapping it up, Kelleher said: “We would love to have (Callen) as a rider.”
And, it appears, as a runner.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
