Welp, I hope everyone here is ready for a cluster of epic proportions.
As anyone who's been following regional transit issues knows that SANDAG really screwed the pooch with TransNet back in 2004. For those who don't know, the countywide ballot approved TransNet laid out a list of infrastructure improvements for SANDAG to build (mostly freeway expansions with the Mid-Coast Trolley thrown in) and put in a half cent sales tax to pay for them. Which would have worked great, except those initial funding projections didn't take into account the 2008 recession and now there's a $10 billion dollar hole in-between the cost of voter approved list of projects and the funding available to pay for them.
What's more, new state environmental regs require SANDAG transit plans reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. This means a plan which consists mostly of building freeway lanes isn't going to fly with Sacramento. The state government is more or less mandating SD County build more transit, when with the current funding it can't even afford to build the freeways it already promised.
Anyway, after all this became clear last year the old SANDAG director got fired. Then yesterday, the new SANDAG director announced he's going to propose that they cut most of the remaining highway projects and put the freed up funds into a proposed set of transit lines. Here are the projects SANDAG is planning to cut (minus the BRT):
SANDAG's new director hasn't released any details of the new transit plan, only said they won't be new Trolley lines or buses (which he says are too slow). Previously he was very enamored with self-driving cars and hyperloop, until a team of automation experts and the CEO of Hyperloop (not Elon, some other guy) gave a talk at a SANDAG board meeting where they basically explained their technology wouldn't be a feasible replacement for SD county's public transit. Right now he's just saying that SANDAG's admin team is going to find a new form of public transit which is faster than LRT/Buses. So far the admin team doesn't even have a baseline cost estimate for this hypothetical transit system, although based on the typical cost of freeway lanes vs transit miles it's almost assured to be more expensive than the TransNet plan was.
Okay now here's where things get tricky, because most of North and East county don't have the population density or the job center concentration to make building mass transit a worthwhile endeavor. Predictably, they are not exactly happy with SANDAG overturning voter approved list of highway projects and replacing it with a mass transit system that will mainly benefit the denser Central SD and South Bay regions (a system which, just fyi, they will continue being taxed to pay for). But Sacramento passed a bill last year changing the voting powers in SANDAG from a per city basis to tallies based upon each cities population. So if the SD city and South Bay mayors can overrule them on the SANDAG board to approve the new plan, and so far both seem pretty happy with this arrangement.
Buuut a new transit tax require a 2/3rds majority on a countywide ballot, and that will almost definitely require at least some support from North and East county voters. And SANDAG will almost certainly need it, because in just about any sane world high tech transit systems cost more than miles of barren concrete. So under this plan SANDAG is currently proposing to eliminate highway improvements that would benefit North and East county, improvements that they in part voted to approve back in 2004, and then ask them to vote for a more expensive system that would mainly benefit central SD. But then, the alternative is to pray $10 billion dollars will rain out of the sky to pay for expanding our polluting freeways, and then tens of billions more to pay for a new transit system in central SD.
So far the mayors of Santee, El Cajon, Poway, San Marcos, Escondido, Oceanside, and Coronado have stated their opposition. Two of the five County commissioners have come out against, the full county board will vote on Tuesday and likely will condemn the proposal. Mayors of SD city, Chula Vista, and Solana Beach came out in favor. I suspect this will start hitting the media in the next week.