SkyWest ending Modesto – Los Angeles flights after two years

[BEN van der MEER, Mar. 27, 2008]

SkyWest Airlines will discontinue round-trip flights between Modesto and Los Angeles.

Citing high fuel prices and insufficient revenue, Airport Manager Jerome Thiele said the Modesto-Los Angeles flights were consistently full, but SkyWest wasn’t satisfied with the revenue from those flights.

The airline had an introductory one-way price of $79 when the flights began in June 2006. At that time, the city of Modesto had a one-year agreement to pay SkyWest as much as $550,000 if the airline’s flights weren’t profitable. After that the city and airline were on their own.

Thiele said the Los Angeles flights helped Modesto to a record number of boarding passengers in 2007, with 51,587 taking flights from the airport. “Those flights definitely stimulated the market here,” Thiele said. “The LA flights were very popular.”

Joy Madison, Modesto Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer, said SkyWest’s announcement is doubly disappointing because the problem wasn’t that travelers weren’t taking the planes.

“Any time you lose air service, it’s harder for the local businesses,” said Madison. “It’s a recruiting and a retention tool.”

Before SkyWest’s flights started, Modesto hadn’t had air service to Los Angeles since 1992, when American Eagle stopped its service.

SkyWest also will drop one daily flight to San Francisco from Modesto on Wednesdays and Thursdays for the same reasons as the Los Angeles flights.

Thiele and Madison said they believe it’s possible Modesto can restore air service to Los Angeles, based on the popularity of SkyWest’s flights. “We hope to be able to turn this around,” Thiele said. “Given the population, the population growth and the economic base here, there is a market.”

Future transportation expansion, and how it could offer a glimmer of economic hope to the workforce as well as the local economy, is a greatly coveted prize.

Riverbank might try to attract rail depot:
City leaders will decide on challenge to Modesto

Riverbank might compete with Modesto for Stanislaus County’s only high-speed rail station.

Riverbank City Council members will review whether to challenge Modesto’s presumed lock on the only station between Stockton and Merced.  “I think it’s very feasible, it would make a lot of sense and truly could be a regional hub not just for Riverbank but for the whole area,” Riverbank Mayor Virginia Madueño said.

The possibility of a contest hinges on which of the county’s railroads ultimately are preferred by state rail authorities. And that might depend heavily on how each meets the needs of high-speed rail not here, but in other counties to the south: Decisions over which lines to use in Fresno and Merced counties might dictate which railroad right of way is chosen for Stanislaus County.

The Riverbank-Modesto competition could arise only if rail authorities approve the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe line running east of Modesto, with an Amtrak stop near the end of Briggsmore Avenue. That line continues north through Riverbank, which had an Amtrak station until 1999.

Modesto City Council members are lobbying for alignment on a Union Pacific line running downtown. Years ago, the city built a depot used by buses and taxis. The depot could serve trains as well because it’s right next to Union Pacific tracks.

The council unanimously threw support to that line last week, saying bullet train passengers could play a role in continuing efforts for downtown revitalization.

Riverbank, which sprung up next to a railroad, finished a $9 million upgrade to its downtown four months ago and envisions shopping, offices, a plaza and maybe a sports complex on a former cannery site nearby. A depot on the line that used to serve the cannery could deposit passengers in the middle of the new development, officials say.

“Riverbank was the center of the railroad in Stanislaus County for a long, long time,” City Manager Rich Holmer said. “We want to see that continue.”

Modesto Councilman Garrad Marsh said downtown Modesto is much more central to most of the county’s residents, including its three largest cities — Modesto, Turlock and Ceres — as well as the county’s West Side communities. The Union Pacific line roughly parallels Highway 99, the valley’s motor vehicle backbone.

Modesto also remains in the running for a stop on a possible extension of the Altamont Commuter Express rail coming from the Bay Area with its current terminus in Stockton. Riverbank could make a play for that line as well, if the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe right of way is chosen.

Here in the local commute arenas, lack of communication provides real barriers, and traffic jams, to commuters.

Yosemite roadwork delayed again:
Railroad crossings send traffic back to one lane

Despite years of planning and construction, $2 million in cost overruns and official pleas for patience, the promise of four smoothly flowing lanes from Modesto to Empire is being held up.Before the $10 million widening, vehicles had access to a center turn lane and shoulders for turns. Both were removed with the new stripes. “They’ve created a traffic jam that wasn’t there,” said Chris Rose, a transportation supervisor.

At issue are crossings on the Modesto & Empire Traction Co. railroad running parallel to Yosemite. Large eastbound trucks can’t make right turns without swinging wide to the left — into the left lane, if two lanes were there. They wouldn’t encroach on the other lane if the railroad crossings were larger.

Widening the railroad crossings could cost $750,000 in money that never was set aside.

The county’s public works department hopes to secure state funding for the Mariposa crossing, Harris said, which could be done this summer. StanCOG’s policy board will be asked to shift money left over from widening Yosemite to the two remaining crossings, Harris said.

“Why (the state) didn’t identify this as a safety issue several years ago, I can’t answer,” Harris said. “We’re going to be working very, very hard to get this done just as fast as we possibly can.”

“It’s a waste of taxpayers’ money,” Mark Cardoza said of the widening project. “They got rid of one choke point and now we’ve got a new one, defeating the whole purpose of the project. I wish they’d get their ducks in a row and get it right the first time.”

And then there are the bike paths – problematic mostly because there are so many bike paths with critical gaps to creating a free-flowing route from one area of the city to another.

 

 

TRANSPORTATION CHALLENGE