Trolley-to-airport skepticism clouds transit tax
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The area in front of Terminal 2 at San Diego International Airport. Photo: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
An airport-transit connection is one of the big ticket items in a ballot measure to increase sales taxes for transit, but the plan for that project is as uncertain as it's been in recent memory.
Why it matters: The lack of an airport connection to the region's Trolley system has confused and frustrated residents for years, but an emerging consensus on how to do it ran into a significant delay earlier this year and is now at risk of falling apart completely.
Driving the news: A Port of San Diego official told the agency's board not to delay plans for a new agency headquarters over a once-favored proposal that called for doing so while building a transit station on port property near the airport with an automated people mover connected to the terminals, as the Union-Tribune reported.
- Leadership changes at the San Diego Association of Government, which is in charge of planning and building regional transportation projects, mean the agency has "gone back to the drawing board," the official said.
Catch up quick: A year ago, SANDAG formally shifted its focus instead to simply extending the Trolley to the airport from downtown's Santa Fe Depot.
The intrigue: A more revealing comment on skepticism facing the project appeared in a weekly Union-Tribune feature that poses the same question to a panel of local economists. Last week, they were asked whether the airport will ever get a light rail link.
- Ray Major, SANDAG's former chief economist and deputy CEO until he was fired by the new CEO in July, said any airport connection — either extending the Trolley or building a people mover — is too expensive and doesn't measure up to other regional priorities.
- "The project is extremely complex and unlikely to be built in the foreseeable future," Major said.
State of play: Meanwhile, voters are preparing to weigh in on Measure G, a half cent sales tax increase for regional transportation projects that has made a rail connection to the airport a central piece of its campaign.
- It's the only specific project on the measure's homepage, listed alongside general priorities like "rapid routes from job centers to communities" and "street repairs in every community."
What they're saying: "Residents throughout the San Diego region clearly want an easy transit connection to the airport, similar to what we see in most major cities," said Gretchen Newsom, a spokesperson for the measure.
- "Measure G helps fund this as a priority project and we're counting on regional planners and community leaders to make this a reality."
How it works: Measure G was put on the ballot through a citizens initiative, sponsored by local labor unions and infrastructure-building companies.
- If passed the money it raises would go to SANDAG and fund projects planned and approved by its board, composed of elected officials from around the county.
The other side: SANDAG maintains that it is sticking to a timeline laid out earlier this year that calls for narrowing a list of potential connections and reviewing their environmental impacts by the end of 2026.
- "We are still very much committed to this project, and to the schedule we communicated to the board," said Antoinette Meier, SANDAG's senior director of regional planning.