The Desert Sun newspaper reports that the California State Transportation Agency granted $5.9 million to fund temporary Amtrak service to Indio, Calif., to benefit those attending the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach country music festival. Film and TV news source Deadline Hollywood reports that an additional $2.7 million was awarded by Riverside County for the project. The funds will be used to build a temporary 900-foot passenger platform in Indio, with hopes of permanently establishing an Amtrak stop in the Coachella Valley.
The Desert Sun quotes Dana Reed, vice chair for the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency, as saying the project is the first step in establishing daily Amtrak service between L.A. and Orange County. The nearest Amtrak station to Indio is in Palm Springs.
According to Deadline Hollywood, as part of the plan, passengers would board Amtrak at Los Angeles Union Station and travel about two hours to Coachella Valley, where they would then board shuttle buses to the concert grounds. The publication reports that the goal is to have the platform constructed in time for the 2020 Coachella and Stagecoach festivals. The Stagecoach Festival drew about 75,000 people in 2018, while Coachella drew approximately 300,000 people during the festival’s three days.
We are subsidizing concert goers already. Roads, air pollution, congestion, police, EMS. Might as well make it better for all involved…
Everything is California is overly expensive.
With no shelter, thats just a slab on concrete and concrete isnt so expensive.
You could build a permanent platform for that amount of money .
$8.6 million for a temporary platform?
Now we need to subsidize concert goers?
A little correction there about the Coachella Festival, it now runs over two(2) consecutive weekends and those 300,000 people are the attendance for each weekend. The Stagecoach Festival is usually held the weekend after Coachella, so that’s 3 weekends in a row that sees bumper to bumper traffic on I10 and high priced rooms for those that don’t camp. The only way to get into the Festival is via shuttle or walking, so that part is already provided from the not so nearby parking areas.