Ontario Airport For The Car-Free

[tags]metrolink, ontario international airport, lax, express jet, los angeles[/tags]

ExpressJet flies out of Ontario Airport, and offers lower-fares and non-stop flights.

When it comes to airports in the Los Angeles region LAX isn’t the only game in town, but for the car-free the other options can seem unreachable. Ontario International Airport, the second largest airport in the L.A. area, is located in San Bernardino County and is about 43 miles from Downtown Los Angeles (LAX is about 18 miles from Downtown). Why attempt such a trek when LAX is so much closer and served by the fast and friendly FlyAway? In my case, on a recent trip to America’s heartland, it came down to money!

ExpressJet, a low-cost airline that flies out of Ontario (and not LAX), offered non-stop flights (duration: 2hrs 30min) to Oklahoma City for about $125 less than flights (with layovers) from LAX. The money and the chance to not have to spend 4-5 hours en route was enough to convince me that flying out of Ontario was something I needed to do. Now I just had to figure out how to get there…

My first stop when planning a new transit journey is none other than the Metro Trip Planner. The trusty tool came up with a single route for me… a two-hour, tw0-bus journey from 7th/Olive in Downtown L.A. to an intersection a short walk from the airport in Ontario. Total cost: $3.35. The price was certainly right, but the prospect of a tw0-hour bus trip split evenly on a Foothill Transit Silver Streak and an Omnitrans Bus didn’t sit well with me. Plus, buses traditionally have a bit of a reliability problem, and I didn’t want to risk missing my flight or finding myself stranded in the middle of the Inland Empire. I decided to look for other options.

I loaded up Google Earth and took a look at the area surrounding Ontario International. My eyes lit up with I saw a Metrolink Station with the name East Ontario which seemed to be a short walk from the airport. Could it be that there’s been non-stop train service to Ontario Airport all along? How brilliant! As I excitedly looked up the schedules for the Riverside Line I began to have the sinking feeling that this was too good to be true. Further research revealed that although the East Ontario Station was indeed right next to the airport, it was on the other side of the terminals. To reach the terminal I would have to go around the airport a distance of approximately 4 miles. What a bummer. Perhaps the airport had a shuttle for those who arrived by Metrolink? Of course not.

The Riverside Line has a very limited schedule compared to other Metrolink lines, and as I scanned Google Earth I noticed that the San Bernardino Line also served the area. The Upland Station is about 6 miles away from the airport, and the trains serve the station much more frequently than the East Ontario Station on the Riverside Line. The ride from Union Station to Upland would clock in at just shy of an hour at $7.50, but what about the last 6 miles? I decided that I would “transfer” to a taxi. I gave Yellow Cab in Upland a call and made a reservation for a pickup from the Upland Station five minutes after the train’s scheduled arrival. My trip was planned, now it just had to be completed.

A coffee shop adorns the Upland Metrolink Station.

On the day of my flight I hauled my suitcase onto the Red Line at 7th Street Metro Center and rode to Union Station. I transferred to the Metrolink which left right on schedule and got a kick out of the ride as I watched us pass cars idling down the 10 freeway. An hour later I was in sweltering but charming Upland. This is where my trip encountered its first snag. After 10 minutes my taxi had still not arrived. I called Yellow Cab and they said robotically that my cab was on its way. It was another 10 minutes until the cab finally arrived. From there it was smooth sailing once again. My cabbie was at once confused and impressed. He was not aware that Upland had a Metrolink Station (which is why he was late) and he had never heard of anyone taking the train to fly out of Ontario, but he clearly thought it was a great idea. He mentioned that he’d just taken a passenger from Upland to Long Beach, a $230 fare, and wondered if the woman knew she could have saved $220 by taking the train. Within 10 minutes and $20 (I left the cabbie a healthy tip for the conversation) I was at Ontario International. Total trip time was about 1hr 40min. Total cost was $27.50. Inside Ontario proved itself to be the anti-LAX, it was clean, fast, and uncrowded. From check-in to the gate was no more than a 10-minute ordeal.

So was it worth it? Indeed. It certainly would not have taken as long to get to LAX (30-45 minutes on the FlyAway), but the time saved would be lost due to the fact that there were no non-stop flights from LAX, effectively adding 2-3 hours of travel time to my trip. Even with the cost of the Metrolink and the cab, I still saved just under $100 by flying out of Ontario. Plus, with the exception of the long wait for the cab, the trip was as easy as it gets - a pleasant train ride followed by a quick cab ride. A ride on a SuperShuttle shared-ride van would cost $60. Cost of driving (per the AAA formula at 56.2 cents per mile) would be $22.97, plus you’d have to own a car, drive, and pay for parking.

If you have easy access to the Metrolink San Bernardino Line and a flight from Ontario is an option, I recommend you do a cost comparison because you could very well save a lot of time and money by making this transit trek instead of flying out of LAX.