Telepeer

Ridership drop, service cuts plague Metrolink as it struggles to define its future

May 15, 2026

Battered by huge drops in ridership and bleeding cash, Southern California’s Metrolink service is plotting a future that assumes neither will rebound anytime soon.

The commuter train service, born in 1992 in Los Angeles and now serving Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties as well, has lost about 40% of its riders since the COVID pandemic hit six years ago, though March experienced a slight bump in passengers coinciding with spiking gas prices.

As ridership has dipped, so have fare revenues. Metrolink riders paid $35.1 million in fares in 2016; now, annual fare revenue is down to about $17 million, according to the Orange County Transportation Authority.

People greet an arriving northbound Metrolink train in Irvine, CA, on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. The loss of 40% of its riders since the pandemic and an operational budget deficit of $30 million has triggered service cuts already, and more may be coming.(Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

1 of 15

Expand

That’s taking a toll on the agency’s budget, which already was hobbled by an overly optimistic fare revenue forecast for the 2025-26 fiscal year that left Metrolink with $15 million in unrealized fares.

“Our gap is somewhere between $30 million and $35 million in an operational deficit,” Metrolink CEO Darren Kettle said in an interview with the Southern California News Group.

The gloomy financial outlook has prompted the agency to scramble for state and perhaps federal funding to stave off service cuts as it prepares for an influx of riders for the World Cup this year and the Summer Olympics in 2028.

The timing for these budget discussions couldn’t be worse, Kettle said. “We’re supposed to serve as the backbone regional transit system in Southern California for the Olympic Games.”

‘Blunt force trauma’

So how did Metrolink, which is beloved by loyal passengers looking to avoid high gas prices and freeway gridlock, find itself in such a financial crunch?

Metrolink is largely funded by the transportation authorities of Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. Portions are based on ridership: LA Metro covers 51% of the funds Metrolink collects from transportation agencies and OCTA pays about 19%. Riverside and San Bernardino counties each contribute about 11%.

Kettle said commuters have always been the bread and butter of Metrolink, but COVID’s stay-home restrictions inflicted “blunt force trauma” on the system.

Remote work has fundamentally changed commuting patterns everywhere, said Michael McNally, a professor with UCI’s Institute of Transportation Studies. Not only are about 37% of workers in the Metrolink area working from home full-time or part-time, commuter patterns have changed rush hour as well, he said.

Across the country, “morning and afternoon peaks have flattened out,” he said, and midday traffic “has increased substantially.” This reflects how people are working alternative schedules or leaving the house during the day while working from home.

“It’s a big shift in overall travel behavior,” McNally said. It also may be contributing to decreased Metrolink ridership. With less traffic at rush hour, “that trade-off might be, ‘Why should I take the train if I can drive?’ ”

In October 2024, Metrolink changed its strategy, ramping up service by 23% in an effort to attract noncommuters. The move had the support of the transportation authorities from all five counties, Kettle said. The reimagined schedule introduced midday and night trains, which accommodated passengers going to Los Angeles for a show or a baseball game, Kettle said. But since then, ridership has increased only 2%, according to OCTA.

Funding cuts

In recent years, Metrolink was buoyed by federal COVID funding and state relief during the pandemic, but those funding sources have dried up.

In the past five years, the bill for Orange County’s share of Metrolink’s budget has doubled, said OCTA CEO Darrell Johnson. OCTA’s per-rider subsidies also have shot up — in the 2019 fiscal year, OCTA subsidized $5.80 per rider. Now, it’s $16.84 — a 163% increase.

The OCTA, in turn, has announced it will cut 10% of its Metrolink funding; LA Metro plans to cut its funding 3%.

In March, Metrolink announced a 20% decrease to weekday service due to a train repair backlog and issues replacing parts. On April 27, the train service said the reduced schedule would be extended indefinitely. Some riders have criticized Metrolink for being unreliable. In February, Metrolink canceled trains 21 times, and, in March, there were more than 40 cancellations.

The recent changes have reduced Metrolink service from 164 trains a day to 132. Kettle said he plans to “search everywhere to try to identify funding to maintain our service levels,” hoping Metrolink can return to 164 trains a day. If he can’t find additional state or federal funding to fill its budget gap, the service may be forced to cut another 20%, down to 96 daily trains, Kettle said.

‘Rightsizing’ option

Transportation authorities, however, are divided on the best response to Metrolink’s budget challenges. The OCTA questions whether it’s necessary to return to full service, but that sentiment is not universal — Kettle said Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties are asking for increased service.

The OCTA’s Johnson believes Metrolink service needs to be “rightsized.”

“Is the product that you’re selling what people want?” Johnson asks. Running 164 trains a day is “probably a bit too many,” he said.

Orange County’s voter-approved sales tax that supports Metrolink expires in 2041, but Johnson warned that at full service levels, the earmarked money will run out sooner. “If we don’t make a change today to rightsize the service, we will run out of Metrolink funding in 2033,” he said.

Further cuts could make the service more sustainable, he said.

“We want it for our kids and grandkids,” Johnson said. “We want to make sure these choices are here for decades to come, not just getting through a budget cycle. Our responsibility has to be the long term.”

Metrolink already has cut about $3.5 million in internal expenses, Kettle said. Travel and training budgets have been cut, merit-based raises were not handed out, and consultant budgets have been sliced. But more than half of Metrolink’s costs are fixed, Kettle pointed out. “Whether we run 10 trains or 100 trains, we still have to take care of most of the equipment, we have to take care of all of that track,” he said.

Potential fare increases also are on the table.

Trains ‘a lifesaver’

Terrence Feagin, a 36-year-old Moreno Valley resident who works in nonprofit finance, said Metrolink has been a “lifesaver” for his commute to Los Angeles. While he’s not thrilled by the prospect of increased fare prices, he said he’s willing to pay more if necessary. He’d rather have the opportunity to catch up on work on the train than sit in freeway traffic for over two hours, he said.

But Feagin laments the recent service cuts, calling them a “bummer” that forced him to take an earlier train. Metrolink, in a news release, said the recent 20% service reduction led to only a modest 4% drop-off in ridership, indicating that many customers, like Feagin, “have adjusted their regular travel patterns.” But Feagin says further cuts would “definitely cause an issue” for him because he has to pick up his kids from daycare and after-school programs.

Doug Chaffee, Metrolink’s board chair and OCTA’s representative, said it seems like the service cuts have made Metrolink “a little more efficient.” But Chaffee believes Metrolink should stay as it is now — he doesn’t believe further cuts are necessary, but doesn’t necessarily agree that full service should be reinstated. “We need to test it,” he said. “I think the initial results are looking positive.”

McNally suggested that the small ridership dip after the recent service reduction suggests the cuts were made methodically, but he warned that further cuts would likely have a larger impact on ridership.

“Metrolink really provides a valuable service, and we should be very careful before we drop something like that,” he said.

If state funding doesn’t come through and Metrolink moves forward with a second 20% service reduction, it likely would be accompanied by a 25% workforce layoff, Kettle said. And because Metrolink shares tracks with freight railroads, it would have to relinquish time slots. “It will be very, very difficult to get those slots back,” he said.

Ramping up for Olympics

Combined with the Olympics and, to a lesser extent, the World Cup competition coming to Southern California next month, such a drastic service cut would create chaos, Kettle said. If further cuts are made, “it would be extremely difficult for us to be able to deliver a level of service that supports the Olympic Games in 2028,” he said. Instead, Metrolink should be ramping up service, he said.

In addition to state funding, Kettle is hoping for about $200 million in federal government assistance.

Increasing service in preparation for the Olympics “makes sense,” McNally said. Sports are a “revenue magnet. Maybe the Olympics need to subsidize Metrolink,” he said.

Chaffee said Metrolink is still waiting to hear about funding levels from LA28, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics. “We envision, based on the ridership needs during the Olympics, having to triple our service,” he said. If they don’t receive a budget soon, he said, “we will not have enough time to put that all together.”

Ridership drop, service cuts plague Metrolink as it struggles to define its future Orange County Register

News Details

Ridership drop, service cuts plague Metrolink as it struggles to define its future

‘Blunt force trauma’

Funding cuts

‘Rightsizing’ option

Trains ‘a lifesaver’

Ramping up for Olympics

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

News

CONTACT INFO

QUICK LINKS

SERVICES

CURRENT NEWS