TEMECULA -- Instead of fighting traffic for an hour and a half, Susan Lane imagines dropping the car off in Temecula and getting extra work done on the laptop while taking a train to her Mira Mesa software development job.

"I'd most certainly have company," said the 35-year-old Wildomar woman in an interview Monday. "(Commuter rail) has proven to work in Northern California and on the East Coast, and there is no reason why it couldn't work here."

A regional transportation agency is about to set out to prove whether in fact commuter trains -- like the Coaster between Oceanside and downtown San Diego and the Metrolink that cruises six Southern California counties -- could work in an area that has never had that type of transit service: Southwest Riverside County and inland San Diego County.

The Riverside County Transportation Commission's budget and implementation committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend launching a $100,000 study to examine the potential for trains along the Interstate 15 corridor -- south from Temecula to San Diego, and north to Corona.

The commission is scheduled to take up the matter July 12. If commissioners approve, the study will be tackled by the consulting firm of Wilbur Smith and Associates and completed in early 2007, said John Standiford, an agency spokesman.

A San Diego County official welcomed the study but cautioned that the lack of available government right of way through Escondido and the steep mountains through Fallbrook pose daunting challenges.

Standiford said the planned study would provide a "quick look" at the engineering challenges, as well as the potential number of riders and likely costs.

Saying the review could set the stage for detailed analysis later if officials deem the concept worth pursuing, Standiford said, "It's a study to see if there are any fatal flaws that prevent you from moving forward."

Besides introducing commuter rail to Southwest Riverside County and the inland portion of North San Diego County, the conceptual project could resurrect a section of railroad that once operated between Lake Elsinore and Corona.

"Since the railway got washed out in the '30s, there has never been an interest in getting the railroad back on line," said Lake Elsinore Mayor Bob McGee, a member of the budget committee. "It is exciting to see it become a glimmer of hope now."

McGee said he believes the area needs commuter trains.

"It'll help relieve congestion on the 15," he said. "We've seen ridership on the Riverside and Corona (Metrolink) trains into Orange County go up exponentially over the last several years. And more and more we are seeing people move into the Elsinore Valley and driving down into San Diego for jobs."

Lane, the software manager who lives just south of Lake Elsinore, said it is no surprise that many are moving north given the lofty real estate prices in San Diego County. And, she said, until large businesses with top-dollar jobs migrate with them to Riverside County, people will continue to drive south.

Lane said she would prefer riding to driving, given the price of gasoline and worsening congestion.

"Gas prices are just really out of control," she said.

Joe Kellejian, transportation chairman for the San Diego Association of Governments, San Diego County's regional planning agency, welcomed the study.

"I'm always looking for transportation opportunities," Kellejian said. "It could only be a plus for both regions."

However, Kellejian said, the mountainous area south of Temecula is probably too steep for a commuter train, meaning costly tunnels would be needed. And after the association finishes adding carpool and express-bus lanes in the middle of I-15 through Escondido early next decade, no right of way will be left.

Then there's a proposed 700-mile statewide high-speed rail system. If built, it would go through the same corridor.

"It may be premature to look at that (commuter rail) until we find out what the high-speed rail is going to do," Kellejian said.

For now, very little is going on.

While a $37.5 billion public works measure is headed for the November ballot, it would fund freeways, schools, low-income housing and flood-control levees. There is no money in it for high-speed rail. A $10 billion high-speed rail bond was supposed to go to voters in November 2004, but lawmakers want to put it on the shelf until at least 2008.

Temecula Mayor Ron Roberts, who sits on the Riverside County commission, said he does not believe the study conflicts with high-speed rail plans. The bottom line, he said, is that either train project would ease the commute, and whichever one gets built first will be the only one built in the corridor.

"By the time we start looking at something like that (commuter rail), we will know whether high-speed rail is going to go, and I don't think it's going to go," Roberts said. "It's just dead in the water."

More information from the Riverside County Transportation Commission can be found at www.rctc.org. The San Diego Association of Governments is online at www.sandag.org.

- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.