On Friday, April 6, several dozen elected officials and train-hat-wearing enthusiasts gathered at the Goleta station platform to celebrate the first week of the new morning commuter train. Cutting the ribbon to officially inaugurate the service was State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, who’d had a major hand at the state level in pushing the new train time into being. She likened its long-awaited arrival to giving birth, except it took years. The first week, which suffered delays four days out of five, was like “the soft opening of a restaurant,” she said.
A switching mishap, a mechanical issue, and passing Metrolink trains had delayed the morning commute by an hour each day. Brian Annis, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, ballparked a cool $30 million to create additional siding between Ventura’s Seacliff and Santa Barbara to alleviate track-and-train conflicts.
“Good things don’t come easily, but I think we’ve turned a corner and are on a roll,” punned SBCAG’s Gregg Hart. SBCAG, or the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, is the local agency that has been pursuing a commuter train for at least the past decade.