{"id":188045,"date":"2026-02-21T23:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T23:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/188045\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T23:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T23:50:11","slug":"mts-could-raise-fares-or-slash-service-riders-dislike-both-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/188045\/","title":{"rendered":"MTS could raise fares or slash service. Riders dislike both options."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Cars travel north along Interstate 5 as the Blue Line trolley bound for San Ysidro passes overhead. (Photo by Thomas Murphy\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

This story is also available in Spanish here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Venancia Cruz Villalobos begins her workday long before she steps onto the Blue Line trolley<\/a> at San Ysidro. Five days a week, the 42\u2011year\u2011old crosses the border from Tijuana and boards the Trolley that takes her to downtown San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pay 72 dollars a month for my Trolley pass,\u201d she said. Aguilar earns 18 dollars an hour working at a restaurant. \u201cI used to live in National City, but I couldn\u2019t afford it anymore, so I had to move to Tijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an annual income of about $23,400 \u2014she only works five hours a day\u2014 Cruz Villalobos mirrors the typical Blue Line rider. And now, she\u2019s one of the thousands who could feel the ripple effects of a $528 million budget deficit <\/a>looming over San Diego\u2019s Metropolitan Transit System in the next three fiscal years.<\/p>\n

Faced with that daunting shortfall, the agency is weighing two courses of action: Raise fares but maintain service levels, or cut \u2014 in some cases eliminate \u2014 weekend service.<\/p>\n

Neither choice is pretty for Cruz Villalobos, or riders like her.<\/p>\n

Taking the pulse of riders<\/p>\n

To understand what its riders think, MTS is surveying riders<\/a> and hosting workshops across the region. The latest, in National City, had interpreters and Spanish flyers ready \u2014but not a single Spanish-speaking attendee.<\/p>\n

After the workshop at the Palomar Station, Santiago Alvarez, a 62\u2011year\u2011old San Ysidro resident who takes the trolley every day, said he didn\u2019t go to the workshop because he never heard a word about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cA workshop for what? I didn\u2019t hear anything about it,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cIf I had known, I would\u2019ve told them to look for other ways to fix the problem\u2014maybe a different fare for low\u2011income riders. Most of us who take the trolley earn very little.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reaching a Spanish-speaking audience is not a minor issue for MTS. Nearly 50% of MTS riders primarily speak Spanish, according to Brian Lane, a senior regional planner with SANDAG.<\/p>\n

For Cruz Villalobos, a fare increase from $72 for a monthly pass to as high as $100 feels impossible to swallow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI already make very little,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they raise it that much, I\u2019d basically have to work two whole days just to pay for transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That jump would represent an increase of up to 39% \u2014a big hit for riders who rely on the system daily.<\/p>\n

Even so, Lane said the agency keeps hearing the same thing when it asks how to handle their budget shortfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cRiders consistently tell us they\u2019d rather see a moderate fare increase than lose weekend service or experience a decline in service quality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Weekend cuts would have consequences. <\/p>\n

Internal MTS estimates show that nearly 20% of Blue Line trips happen on Saturdays and Sundays, much of it tied to hospitality and healthcare workers, or cross-border travel. Losing those runs would hit some of the county\u2019s lowest\u2011income riders hardest.<\/p>\n

But riders care about more than just weekend service and fares. Safety routinely ranks among riders\u2019 top concerns, too.<\/p>\n

More than two years ago, MTS beefed up its security spending<\/a> to combat rider perception that stations, buses and trolleys were unsafe. MTS officials say safety incidents have gone down, but many riders don\u2019t feel that improvement.<\/p>\n

Braulio Acosta, 19, from Chula Vista, rides the Blue Line every day to get to school and work. A fare hike would sting, he said, but safety is what worries him most.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou run into people who get aggressive or start yelling, and there\u2019s no one around to help,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

A $528 million hole, but reason for hope<\/p>\n

Mark Olson, MTS\u2019s director of marketing and communications, said several forces collided to put the agency\u2019s budget in peril<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A tighter labor market pushed\u00a0the agency to raise operator wages. Rising costs of materials and equipment from inflation raised costs. Revenues flatlined, along with ridership, for years after the pandemic. And most importantly, the agency lacks a stable local funding source dedicated to transit operations.<\/p>\n

MTS receives just an eighth of a cent from the countywide sales tax, TransNet, for its operations. Los Angeles, by comparison, dedicates two cents of every dollar in sales taxes to transit and San Francisco transit takes 1.5 cents of every sales tax dollar.\u00a0 That leaves San Diego overly reliant on uncertain state and federal sources.<\/p>\n

But transit in San Diego isn\u2019t all gloomy despite the financial storm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MTS currently ranks second nationwide in ridership growth<\/a>, and has the second busiest light-rail system in the country. It has seen a 71% increase in youth ridership \u2014 a rare bright spot for transit agencies nationwide.<\/p>\n

For Villalobos, whatever decision they make\u2014raising fares or cutting service days\u2014will directly affect her, since she works Thursday through Monday and her salary hasn\u2019t gone up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I\u2019d had the chance to tell them how those changes could affect me, but I didn\u2019t even know that meeting was happening,\u201d she said as she turned to catch the train home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cars travel north along Interstate 5 as the Blue Line trolley bound for San Ysidro passes overhead. (Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[56529,2076,74,76,62170,75,2856],"class_list":{"0":"post-188045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-blue-line","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-metropolitan-transit-system","13":"tag-san-diego-news","14":"tag-trolley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}