San Diego transportation officials did two notable things last month, one sensible, the other less so.<\/p>\n
As promised, they launched expanded Metropolitan Transit System bus service to San Diego International Airport.<\/p>\n
Then leaders of the San Diego Association of Governments, the regional planning agency, directed staff again to fulfill a four-decade, multibillion-dollar dream of finding a way to build a rail line or automated people mover to the airport.<\/p>\n
Sandwiched between the two actions \u2014 an interesting juxtaposition if there ever was one \u2014 was an MTS statement that its budget shortfall is so severe that it could be forced to eliminate one-third of the bus routes and reduce the frequency of trolley runs in a few years.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, there was a real-world, cautionary tale unfolding up the road in Los Angeles. A people mover to Los Angeles International Airport called Skylink appears to be near completion, but its opening, which was once envisioned for 2023, is again being delayed<\/a>. The latest price tag of $3.3 billion is about $1.4 billion over the original estimate.<\/p>\n That public-private partnership project \u2014 something some SANDAG board and staff members have suggested locally \u2014 has resulted in disputes<\/a> between the contractor and public agency that hired it, a grand jury investigation and a bond downgrading that could make the project vulnerable to default.<\/p>\n Trying to move forward, SANDAG staff deserves credit for what initially was called \u201cinterim\u201d expanded bus service that, in theory, was considered a stopgap measure until a rail\/people mover project could be realized.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, SANDAG CEO Mario Orso\u2019s response to the board\u2019s request to get moving on that faster, sexier, massive project seemed to border on exasperation.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking at basic math, let\u2019s call it $2 billion (for a transit connection). The soft costs to get to a $2 billion project (are) a billion dollars. Who\u2019s going to cover that?\u201d he told the board last month, according<\/a> to Lori Weisberg of The San Diego Union-Tribune.\u00a0\u201cMTS, do you have a check or city of San Diego? Or maybe North County wants to bail us out? We have to figure out all those finances.\u201d<\/p>\n Remember, Orso was hired in part to bring SANDAG down to earth after controversies and a pie-in-the-sky $160 billion, decades-long regional transportation plan that hastened the exit of his predecessor, Hasan Ikhrata, in 2023.<\/p>\n Immediate fiscal hardships affecting several local government agencies shouldn\u2019t stop planning for years and decades ahead. But regardless of good or bad financial times, the trolley\/people mover idea hasn\u2019t come close to becoming a reality.<\/p>\n Weisberg noted the considered options for such a project have narrowed from 21 to five. Progress of sorts, perhaps, but it\u2019s approaching a half-century of discussion and planning.<\/p>\n San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who sits on the SANDAG board, expressed the widely held notion that people want a better connection to the airport.<\/p>\n Such a project was part of Ikhrata\u2019s plan, and it was something that could have been partially funded by a countywide transportation sales tax initiative on the ballot in 2024.<\/p>\n An airport rail line or people mover was a big selling point for Measure G, but the tax was narrowly rejected<\/a> by voters.<\/p>\n MTS officials are now discussing a sales tax proposal for 2028, but given deficits of up to $150 million in a handful of years for existing operations, it\u2019s hard to see much, if any, of that being syphoned off for a new airport route if voters approve.<\/p>\n