Traffic & Transit

Regional Transportation Information
The Super Loop Moves Forward
New and Improved MTS Service for University City

Demographers agree that San Diego County will grow during the next 20 years by over a million people, to more than four million residents. At current usage patterns, that's 685,000 additional cars requiring approximately 37 square miles of new parking spaces?an area equivalent to Lemon Grove, Encinitas, National City and three Del Mars combined. And to move those cars 30 miles an hour, we would need six new Interstate 805s. Clearly, this won't work.

Yes, the City will continue to build roads. We will complete Highway 56 and the widening of the Highway 5/805 merge. We will build Vista Sorrento Parkway and improve Ardath Road. But roads will never be the sole answer to our mobility problems.

Nor is our current approach to public transportation the solution, especially in northern San Diego. We are just now completing the extension of the San Diego Trolley to the east, through SDSU, but the cost of building the trolley has become staggering. Now, the only future rail project on the books heading north of Old Town is the "Mid-Coast Line," a 10.7-mile trolley line that will snake through UCSD and over to UTC shopping center by 2015. That's $700 million for a vehicle that will travel an average of 23 miles per hour, hugging Highway 5 while avoiding residents and businesses that might use transit. I doubt that it's the best we can do for that kind of money.

As one of the City's representatives on the Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB), I have been urging a new approach to public transit that could provide relief sooner and for less money. It's called Transit First a transit strategy that employs "flex-trolleys," trolley-like vehicles that travel on tires on lanes and bridges built and dedicated to transit use.

The idea is to get people directly from where they are to where they're going, do it without requiring a lot of waiting or transfers, make it pleasant, and build the system at a per mile cost that is a fraction of a trolley line. We need to encourage MTDB to follow through on this strategy, which is supported by UCSD, Westfield Shopping Town UTC, the University City Planning Group and many north city businesses, large and small. And we need your help and input as well.

Transit & Traffic Links

Union Tribune Opinion Article - Coaster train station survives for time being

Union Tribune Opinion Article "Region Needs a Transportation Plan" by Scott Peters

SANDAG's Regional Transportation Strategy: Transit First

I-15 Managed Lanes Project

Transit First Mid-Coast Strategy

I-5/805 Expansion Project