[Will O' Wisp]

These two make an interesting pair of reads:

San Diego MTS sees recent spike in trolley, bus ridership

Officials hopeful they can reverse slump in annual transit trips
By Joshua Emerson Smith
Nov. 6, 2019
2:37 PM

Transit officials touted on Wednesday an increase of nearly a million trips on buses and trolleys in recent months — continuing a year-over-year increase in ridership that started in the spring.

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System released data showing that between July and September ridership increased by about 4 percent over the same period last year, going from 21.3 million trips to 22.2 million trips.

The trolley system experienced the largest gains in recent months, with a 6.4 percent increase. The bus system — which serves about 10 million more riders annually than its fixed-rail counterpart — saw a bump of 2.8 percent.

“I’ve been here about 16 years now, and I see increasingly more people caring about transit and supporting transit than ever before,” said MTS CEO Paul Jablonski. “I’m very encouraged by what we’re seeing.”

If recent trends holds, MTS could see its highest annual ridership in several years, pulling in more than 88 million rides.

However, even that wouldn’t be enough to reverse a recent slump that started after 2015, with ridership falling from 96.7 million to less than 86 million since 2018.

MTS is now in the midst of its Elevate SD 2020 campaign, which is aimed at securing support for a half-cent sales tax increase on the November 2020 ballot. As part of that, the agency has launched a new online survey, Vision Builder, to better understand what types of projects voters would like to see tied to the levy.

Early results from MTS’s interactive tool suggest the most popular uses of the tax money include increasing transit service hours and connecting the trolley system to the San Diego International Airport.

If two-thirds of voters approve the transit measure, the new revenue would likely double the agency’s $300 million budget.

MTS polling: San Diegans want more trolley lines — until they see the price tag

San Diego Metropolitan Transit System continues voter outreach ahead of tax hike slated for 2020 ballot
By Joshua Emerson Smith
Nov. 6, 2019
6 AM

Initial results from an online survey launched by the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System in October are calling into question the extent to which San Diegans want the agency to invest in costly new rail lines.

Preliminary results from MTS’s new interactive tool, Vision Builder, suggest that the most popular way for the agency to spend new tax revenue would be to extend service hours on existing transit routes — rather than dramatically expand its light-rail trolley system, as previous surveys have found.

The agency’s recently released data includes 2,258 respondents who chose between transit projects of varying costs using a limited pot of virtual money. Users are given 1,000 coins to spend as a way of voting for their preferred upgrades. The survey is still open to participants.

According to the polling, running buses and trolleys earlier into the morning and later at night was nearly twice as popular as building a long-envisioned Purple Line Trolley between the U.S.-Mexico border and Kearny Mesa and was selected more than three times as often as adding an express route to the Blue Line Trolley between the border and downtown San Diego.

At the same time, October’s online survey results seem to contradict the findings of a previous outreach campaign kicked off by MTS this spring. Both efforts are part of the agency’s Elevate SD 2020 campaign, which is largely aimed at gauging what types of projects residents would like see tied to a tax increase likely to go before voters on the November 2020 ballot.

As part of that effort, transit officials attended 28 events from May through September, surveying more than 2,200 people at everything from the Pride Parade to the Asian Cultural Festival to the Navy Bay Bridge Run to several Chamber of Commerce mixers and neighborhood street fares.

The feedback overwhelmingly suggested that residents were hungry for new trolley lines — garnering more than double the support of the next most popular project type, new Rapid Bus routes.

MTS could see its $300 million annual budget double if two thirds of voters approve the agency’s proposed half-cent sales tax increase. However, building a new trolley line could eat up as much as 40 percent of that new revenue for decades to come.

The issue has become somewhat politically charged as the region’s largest transportation and planning agency, the San Diego Association of Governments, has simultaneously proposed building a high-speed rail network. SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata has publicly criticized the trolley system as too slow.

SANDAG officials also plan to ask voters to approve a separate tax increase to fund what could end up being a competing vision for public transit in the region. The measure could be before voters as early as 2022.

Some transportation advocates have suggested that while MTS should devote significant resources to beefing up its existing system, the agency should also pursue a limited expansion of the trolley network.

While the recent MTS polling suggests that residents are cautious about investing billions in new rail lines, respondents strongly supported connecting an existing trolley line to the San Diego International Airport. The idea was the second most selected project in the Vision Builder results, just slightly ahead of improving security and other amenities on transit.

However, if MTS embraces such a project it would be at the risk of further stoking tensions with SANDAG’s top brass. Ikhrata has made the construction of a San Diego Grand Central that connects transit to the airport a centerpiece of his vision.

Note: Edited to remove reaction quotes from various officials. Click links for full articles.