The author Roger Showley forgot to mention if this will just be a seasonal Summer flight or 5 departures a week year round. I will email him to ask. As you guys know the Condor and Edelweiss flights to Frankfurt and Zurich we got are only 3/4 days a week and from June through Sept/Oct I believe. I really hope this Lufthansa is year round.

Now we really need to work on getting a Shanghai or Hong Kong Flight to service Southern Asia. I find it hard to believe with the massive amounts of Filipinos and Vietnamese we have in SD county we only have a Tokyo flight.

He probably just got the information from the Lufthansa press release which didn't give that info either. I was wondering the same thing:

http://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/e...17/q2/458.html

The article mentioned the Condor and Edelweiss flights as seasonal, but not Lufthansa. I doubt it will be seasonal. This flight will be very connection heavy on the Frankfurt side. SAN will largely be a business and tourism destination.

Philippine Airlines was looking at starting San Diego flights a while back, but have been going through certification challenges as of late.

You can access flights to Shanghai through the TIJ-Cross Border Terminal.

I'd like to know how elevated(grade-separated) light rail systems provide a positive benefit to riders.

One reason is because the trains are not slowed down by traffic at crossings or the need to reduce speeds for safety, thus making travel faster.

Grade separation also benefits motorists from not having to wait at train crossings or deal with safety issues related to having trains cross or run down the middle of streets.

This is true. I've noticed along Park downtown near city college the traffic lights that serve both cars and the trolley are not timed that great, sometimes the trolley is still going even when there's a green light for traffic and car traffic has to wait through another round of lights. It's seems pretty draconian.

That's a bug, not a systemic problem.

Then there are multiple "bugs." Sometimes at different intersections when the trolley is stopped it's partly sticking out into one traffic lane causing cars to need to merge over (I've seen this at two of the C street intersections).

SDCAL is right. A couple years back I believe the trolley had the ROW downtown, meaning the lights would turn red for cars like at railroad crossings to let the trolley pass.

You'll notice trolleys must now take turns with cars, however since the trolley is actually longer than some blocks they hold up cars while waiting at red lights, which is why you see the clusterf**k around City College Station or 5th/4th ave. (Ours blocks are intentionally small, ~200x300 feet. Thank Alonzo Horton for that :)) source: http://sandiego.urbdezine.com/2014/0...o-do-about-it/

Don't believe me? Specs for the trolley are found here: https://www.sdmts.com/sites/default/...bruary2015.pdf

Depending on the model, the length of the current three-car setup is about 265 ft. Typical West/East length of blocks downtown are about 255 ft. The blocks run longer from North-South, just look at Google Maps. Also why the trolley doesn't block cars when running North or South, because blocks are 300 ft or longer on average.

Irony at its best.

Yep. None of those valid points has anything to do with my original question.

As a trolley rider i'd like more stops, like double the amount of stops. If the trolley blocks traffic ... I don't really care as a rider, driver, or pedestrian. Grade separation for light rail makes it burdensome on riders while accommodating vehicle traffic. There's got to be a compromise.

All I can do about it is complain, share my opinion, and fill out rider surveys.

You don't think that having to wait at red lights like all other auto traffic takes away from the efficiency, and thus, reduces the rider experience?

The number of stops is irrelevant to your original question, which spoonman answered in the post after yours. The downtown corridor is an easy example. The trolley would be much faster through that area if elevated or buried and trains did not have to compete with cars and pedestrians by waiting at red lights. The point is not that the train is obstructing traffic, for example, on 11th Ave while stopped at the 10th Ave intersection…the point is it is stopped at a red light.

I think I see what you're getting at... you want transit to be more accessible, right? As in, not just serve parking lots in random parts of the city (granted, some of these parking lots have potential, like Grantville, Clairemont, UTC)

SANDAG is obviously betting, as others have mentioned, on future growth occurring around these transit stations that don't really serve a lot of foot traffic. (Downtown is an exception)

This was a major criticism of my professor, who said transit should go where demand already exists. The key, he said, was to make it as fast as possible (grade separated). Read it here: https://www.slideshare.net/TheMissio...diego-46387912

UCSD Hillcrest Hospital Re-do
 

Not sure if this is of any interest to this forum, but kinda of a big deal: (also the start of a 10-year long process)

"University of California San Diego plans to build a new medical center on its Hillcrest campus by 2030 to comply with California’s Hospital Seismic Safety Law."

http://sduptownnews.com/uc-san-diego...hospital-2030/

http://sduptownnews.com/wp-content/u...erial-view.jpg
http://sduptownnews.com/wp-content/u...p-06-08-17.jpg

This could be significant, especially if they build something like the new Jacobs Medical Center (UCSD) in LJ. That place is pretty nice, both the exterior and inside.

Ballpark Village is topped out!

http://i.imgur.com/g43AFBb.jpg?2

San Diego doesn't have the balls to do anything about their height limits, but here's some related news from San Jose:

"Seeking to reshape downtown San Jose’s low-slung skyline of boxy office towers, Mayor Sam Liccardo is eyeing ways to raise the maximum heights of buildings in the city’s urban core."

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/1...village-quest/

The problem with San Jose is that planes fly directly over downtown, so I'm not quite sure what they can really do to build taller buildings. San Diego on the other hand has no excuse for the vast majority of downtown to be covered by the blanket 500' limit.

From the article:

Federal Aviation Administration officials said the FAA doesn’t specifically set height limits on buildings near airports. But it does have power to undertake reviews.

“Under federal law, the FAA has to be given the opportunity to review any proposed structure over 200 feet high anywhere in the country, and shorter proposed structures if they are near airports,” FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said Tuesday.

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Does this mean SD's blanket 500ft limit is just something local bureaucrats came up with, not the FAA? If a developer wanted to go on their own and get FAA approval for say a 650' tower in east village and the FAA ok'd it, what "teeth" exist in the 500 ft blanket 'rule'? Is it a law, a guideline, what? So much of this outdated blanket rule makes no sense. If a developer wanted to challenge this in court I wonder what would happen

That's great for San Jose, they really need it.

San Diego, it would be great to have zones of taller buildings.

Wow! This one had fallen off my personal radar. I'm amazed to see it topped out already! I'd like to see how this one looks in the skyline from afar.