Drive here, fly there?

Money has a funny way of changing people’s habits, says Orange County Board Chairman John Moorlach.

If officials were to lure passengers away from bustling John Wayne Airport to other regional airports with public transportation, money, time, and convenience will be the bait, Moorlach said.

“If I can convert time to money, people will say, ‘Wait a second, I’m willing to do this,’ ” Moorlach said.

An agreement that sets annual passenger limits at John Wayne at 10.3 million is set to expire in 2010, and a subsequent cap of 10.8 million passengers will end in 2015. Many county and city officials are looking toward public transportation as a way to divert travelers from John Wayne to airports like Palmdale and Ontario.

With rising jet fuel costs and airfares, people might respond favorably to cheaper ticket prices if they book flights from other regional airports, Moorlach said.

But whether passengers will really be willing to travel by rail or bus to more remote airports with fewer direct flights remains to be seen.

“We need to be open to anything,” Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said. “It seems like there is an awakening to the fact that we’re going to need to move people to regional airports.”

Costa Mesa and Newport Beach are using funding from the Orange County Transportation Authority’s Go Local program for a joint study to examine ways the Metrolink commuter rail system could ease road and air traffic at John Wayne Airport.

The Go Local program, which began in 2006, provides funding for studies for cities to examine ways they can improve access to the Metrolink system.

The two cities are in the middle of completing a study to find public transportation alternatives for John Wayne Airport users, Bludau said.

“We want to take a look at John Wayne users to see where they’re coming from and the possibility of connecting to other regional airports,” Bludau said.

John Wayne could eventually serve as a staging area to link people by some sort of high-speed rail system to airports in Los Angeles and Riverside Counties, Bludau said. City officials hope to have the Orange County Transportation Authority study completed by the end of July, he said.

“The study will examine the feasibility of this and get the basic information of what is the percentage of users from South County and North County, and what makes sense in terms of moving people around to other airports,” Bludau said.

Nancy Alston, a member of the John Wayne Airport watchdog group AirFair, said she doesn’t know what kind of public transportation would be most likely to lure people away from the airport, but one thing is for sure — all options should be examined.

“There’s so many options,” Alston said. “If we got a really good dialogue going, maybe we could come to a really great solution.”

OTHER OPTIONS

 LA/Palmdale Regional Airport served about 12,000 passengers in 2007, according to its website. Los Angeles World Airports, which owns Palmdale, as well as Los Angles International Airport and airports in Ontario and Van Nuys, has expressed interest in shifting more flights there.

 LA/Ontario International Airport served about 7 million passengers in 2007, according to its website. Business leaders in Ontario have expressed interest in attracting more traffic to the airport, but passengers complain of a lack of direct flights.

How would a rail system affect your travel plans? E-mail us at [email protected], or leave a comment below.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].