Road vs. Track

Dan Durazo loves his spiffy car and proudly calls himself a “road warrior” for his daily battles on the Santa Ana Freeway. Sheryl Carrerow, on the other hand, despises traffic and treasures her morning train ride as a time for crossword puzzles and cappuccino.

These two contrasting Orange County commuters were pitted against each other Thursday in an odd race: Train versus car, Irvine to Los Angeles during the height of the morning rush hour. And, as an extra wrinkle, a sophisticated stress monitor was hooked up to Durazo to gauge the emotional toll of the urban trek.

For those of you keeping track, it wasn’t even close. Metrolink 1, Road Warrior 0. “She kicked my caboose,” a dejected Durazo huffed after arriving at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.

The publicity stunt by Metrolink was part of the rail network’s campaign to get Southern California commuters to park their cars, and the system’s officials couldn’t have been more pleased at the finish line. Carrerow breezed into Union Station a good 10 minutes ahead of a frazzled Durazo.

Two other races, with commuter pairs starting in Simi Valley and Rancho Cucamonga, also ended with the train rider on time at Union Station and the four-wheel rival lagging. And the readouts from driver stress monitors showed tall, jagged squiggles resembling a Richter scale chart during The Big One.

“We get you there faster and with less stress,” said a grinning Peter Hidalgo, spokesman for the rail system. “This proves it.”

Well, sort of. The station-to-station race, of course, did not take into account the time rail riders spend getting to their train from work and home, but Hidalgo points out that the train ride can be used to get a jump on some workaday tasks.

The 5-year-old Metrolink system is among the fastest-growing rail systems in the country, with an average of 13,000 passengers a day on 416 miles of track. Ridership is expected to increase 16% in the next year, and Orange County is a prime growth area, officials said.

The most popular station on the 87-mile Orange County line is in Irvine, where Durazo started his race against train No. 605 at 7:29 a.m. Thursday. For the first few freeway miles, the Newport Beach resident was strumming his fingers on the steering wheel and zipping through traffic at a brisk 73 mph.

“I take the train once or twice a month,” he said. “But there are two types of people: Road warriors and non-road warriors. I’m a road warrior and it’s hard for us to give up our cars.”

Then the brake lights went on. A stalled car brought traffic to a standstill. Fuming, Durazo finally veered sharply toward the center divider, two wheels off the road, to bolt past the dead Cadillac. Carrerow, meanwhile, had other problems.

“What’s a four-letter word for ‘aromatic gum’? I don’t think it’s “mint,” the Aliso Viejo resident said. Sipping a coffee drink, Carrerow said via cell phone that, win or lose, her mode would deliver her fresh and ready for her workday as a Los Angeles County employee.

“I feel like I have all the time in the world,” she said.

That wasn’t the case with Durazo. With a traffic helicopter from a local radio station following above, the New Jersey native said he felt pressure to make a good showing. “I hate to lose,” he said. “I wonder where that train is?”

Just after 8 a.m., Carrerow and the other passengers were pulling out of Fullerton while Durazo was in Anaheim inching toward Magnolia Avenue. As Carrerow chatted with a new friend, a Metrolink regular named Bob, Durazo was chiding a slow-moving driver in the fast lane. “C’mon, the skinny pedal on the right makes it go faster!”

Ten minutes later, as traffic slowed to a crawl near Paramount Boulevard, Durazo sensed victory slipping through his fingers. “I think they’re smoking us,” he said. When a bus slowed in front of him, he mused about a public transit conspiracy against him and gunned his engine.

At the Union Station parking lot, Durazo’s car bounced hard over a speed bump as he pulled in, parked and dejectedly joined Carrerow and the other race participants among a small crowd of reporters. He smiled and admitted his heart was racing.

“And you know,” he said, “the traffic wasn’t that bad today.”