PALMDALE, Calif. - For the first time in more than a decade, Metrolink trains are making stops in Palmdale, according to the Los Angeles Daily Times. The city's new $10.8 million transportation center began serving Metrolink passengers Monday, providing Palmdale residents a station to call their own. Until Monday, Palmdale Metrolink riders had to catch the trains at either the Lancaster station to the north or the Vincent/Acton station to the south.

"I used to have to go to Acton - this is a lot closer," said Palmdale resident Steve McKay. "It's great. It has nice architecture, and it fits in with the desert."

The transportation center, just west of Sierra Highway and south of Technology Drive, features a gleaming, Spanish-style, 3,150-square-foot terminal and a 45-foot-tall clock tower. The center also includes a 300-space parking lot, a 200-space park-and-ride lot and an eight-bus transfer center.

"I think this is the finest station in the Metrolink system," Mayor Jim Ledford said. Palmdale briefly had its own station for a few months following the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, which toppled freeways and sent commuters to Metrolink. The makeshift station was closed, however, after Metrolink installed a new set of tracks, which would have forced riders to cross over freight train tracks to board.

The center is intended to serve multiple types of transportation. It began serving Antelope Valley Transit Authority's local bus passengers April 16, and it will serve Santa Clarita transit and Greyhound buses starting next month. The center is tied to the Sierra Highway bike path and is positioned to serve high-speed rail, if that mode of travel ever becomes a reality, city officials said.

City officials were among the first passengers. Councilman Steve Hofbauer caught an early morning train to commute to his Los Angeles Fire Department job, and city spokeswoman Barbara La Fata became one of the first reverse commuters to use the station, traveling in from Acton.

The bulk of the project's financing came from two sources: a series of Metropolitan Transportation Authority grants totaling $5.6 million and the city of Palmdale, which used $3.5 million of its Proposition A sales-tax revenue.

Other financial contributors to the project included the state Transportation Department, AVTA, Los Angeles County and the federal government.

"This will be a major hub for the coordination of transportation in the Antelope Valley," said Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts, who sits on both the MTA and Metrolink boards.

City officials had hoped to begin service out of the center last month, but this winter's heavy storms pushed back its opening. Actual damage from the storms was minor, but some of the work was delayed by the water-saturated ground.

An official grand opening for the center is scheduled for June 24.

(This item appeared in the Daily News April 26, 2005.)