New Metrolink Station Will Open Feb. 14 in Camarillo : Transportation: Metrolink site would provide 2 round-trips daily, easing post-earthquake commuting. The debate continues over its financing, however.

A Metrolink station that would provide bare-bones service from Camarillo to Los Angeles is scheduled to open in two weeks, helping to ease post-earthquake commutes, transportation officials said Monday.

Officials from Metrolink and the Ventura County Transportation Commission pledged to start the service on Feb. 14 with two round-trip trains per day, despite growing confusion about how construction and operation of the station will be financed.

After the Jan. 17 earthquake, officials announced plans to extend Metrolink to Camarillo, intending to fund the year-long extension exclusively with up to $900,000 in disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But officials from Metrolink and the Transportation Commission spent most of last week haggling over a range of station plans, with local officials favoring the scrappy slab of asphalt with a dirt parking lot originally discussed and Metrolink officials proposing a sleek, multimillion-dollar facility.

Those discussions are continuing, but officials said several options will be presented to the Transportation Commission at its 10:30 a.m. Friday meeting at Camarillo City Hall.

Transportation Commissioner Bill Davis said he still favors the original, bare-bones proposal.

“What we don’t need right now is a state-of-the-art station with a slew of new engines and cars,” he said. “What we do need is to get some emergency service up and running as soon as possible.”

The no-frills station envisioned by Davis and other officials would include a lighted platform and parking lot for 240 cars. It would lack the automated ticket machines, benches and awnings found at the Simi Valley and Moorpark stations.

And under that option, Camarillo would have only two trains heading to Los Angeles in the morning and two returning at night. Officials originally had envisioned five round-trip trains per day.

Even with a stripped-down station and two trains daily, the Transportation Commission will probably have to pay some of the costs of serving Camarillo, officials now say. The commission gets its money from state transportation funds and county subsidies.

In a memo to the transportation commissioners on Monday, commission Executive Director Ginger Gherardi said the agency should be willing to pay “our share of the costs”--up to $100,000.

Transportation officials said they are confident that FEMA will pay as much as $900,000 to extend the service. But Gherardi said in her memo that if the agency turns down the county’s application, the commission will be liable for the full cost of the project.

Metrolink officials said that although they have proposed a range of station possibilities, they are willing to build whatever Ventura County wants.

Metrolink Regional Coordinator Adrienne Brooks-Taylor said the estimated cost for extending service to Camarillo could run as high as $2.5 million, depending on the type of station. But by cutting corners, costs could be reduced dramatically, she said.

Even if the commission decides to spend only $900,000, “we will go ahead with plans for the station in Camarillo,” Brooks-Taylor said.

Although Metrolink has opened four emergency stations in the Antelope Valley and one in the San Fernando Valley since the quake, no estimates are available on the cost of those stations, Brooks-Taylor said.

“We’ve been working so fast, pulling everything together on an emergency basis, that we’re just now breaking down the cost.”