We have a long way to go before we ever could solve the problem of regional transportation. Yes, I need to use my car to travel within my town and some of the towns in Temecula vicinity. But, to travel to the airports either in Los Angels, San Diego or for leisure, I would best be served using a rapid electric commuter train. We have had fully congested highway 15/215 now, but with a massive population expansion within the region, we would need more access to faster commuter transportation. We are really hemmed in with our highway 15/2015 with no other options at this time.
San Diego is attempting to develop a solution. I have attached a copy of an article published on May 12, 2019, describing a positive approach to solve the highway congestion problem.
Please read it and let me know what you think.
Please read it and let me know what you think.
Michael H. Momeni
SANDAG’s
traffic solutions novel but contested
Congestion
pricing, train corridors would shelve highway expansions
By Joshua
Emerson Smith
New details of a controversial plan to prioritize
rail over widening freeways are starting to emerge — from laying hundreds of
miles of high-speed commuter rail to charging drivers to use many of the most
congested freeways
Officials with the San Diego Association of
Governments told the Union-Tribune last week that the agency plans to run
trains along highway corridors that travel as fast as 100 miles an hour. The most current plan calls for no further expansion of the trolley system, which
goes only about 35 miles an hour on average.
At the same time, SANDAG plans to roll out so-called
congestion pricing on those stretches of freeway, which would charge drivers a
fluctuating toll based on traffic conditions.
Experts say this ambitious, multibillion-dollar the proposal could be the first of its kind in the country.
“We know about toll roads, and we know about
commuter rail, but to combine them all at once would potentially be a new
model,” said Ethan Elkind, a transportation expert who directs the climate
program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at UC Berkeley School
of Law.
Voters would likely need to approve multiple tax
increases to fund the transit expansion. The first test will come in 2020 when
the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System expects to put a sales-tax increase
on the ballot. SANDAG would then likely follow up with its own tax measure.
North and East County officials desperate for
traffic relief in the near term have balked at the costly new vision, which
would take decades and likely require plowing through the property, as well as
building underground and elevated sections of a rail line.
However, what has most rankled politicians from
Oceanside to Santee to El Cajon is that SANDAG’s leadership has simultaneously
called for indefinitely shelving more than a dozen long-planned freeway
expansions. Those projects — outlined in the 2004 voter-approved half-cent
sales tax known as Transnet — include many sought-after projects, such as
adding express lanes to state routes 78 and 52, and widening state routes 67
and 56.
County Supervisors Kris-tin Gaspar and Jim Des-mond,
who both sit on SANDAG’s board of 21 elected officials from around the region,
have led the charge to preserve the highway projects.
“The vision that’s been presented to the board is a
mass transit vision only,” Gaspar said. “People are trying to make this a
roads-versus-transit debate. I’m looking for a balanced transportation plan for
our future.”
Desmond echoed that sentiment and said that the
proposed transit projects will not materialize fast enough to accommodate new
housing and population growth.
“This technology is not going to happen within the
next 10 years, or 15 or 20,” he said. “In the meantime, we still have housing
needs.”
On Thursday, Desmond and other elected officials
joined local talk radio host Carl DeMaio to announce a campaign to shame “road
raiding politicians” on the SANDAG board. DeMaio, the former San Diego City
Council member who spearheaded the failed attempt last year to overturn the
state’s newly enacted gas tax, also threatened a recall campaign aimed at
lawmakers who support nixing the highway projects.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Chula Vista
Mayor Mary Salas have been the most high-profile supporters of SANDAG’s
transportation vision. However, neither politician has said much publicly on
the topic since those opposed to shelving the road projects kicked off their
campaign two weeks ago.
Faulconer and Salas declined multiple interview
requests by the Union-Tribune for this story.
Faulconer’s office released this statement: “Mayor
Faulconer is committed to working with his fellow SANDAG board members on the
regional transportation plan as the San Diego region is at its best when we
stand together. His top priority is creating a complete transportation system
that delivers options for residents and businesses in every part of the
county.”
The chief architect of the new vision, SANDAG
Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata, has said his approach is the only way to get
people to and from their jobs in a timely fashion.
He has argued that adding new lanes will only end in
more gridlock as new drivers pile onto widened thoroughfares. Traffic engineers
often refer to this predicament as induced demand.
“I’m a planner and engineer,” Ikhrata said. “I’ve
spent 30 years of my life in this business. Adding one lane in each direction
does not work. Period. It will just make things worse.”
Most transportation experts agree that expanding
freeways does little to solve traffic congestion, although many point out that
adding rail is no panacea, either.
“Rail is not really suited to reduce traffic
congestion,” said Elkind of UC Berkeley. “It’s designed as an alternative to
traffic congestion and is a way to accommodate new growth in a region without
contributing to air pollution.”
However, implementing congestion pricing to, in
part, help pay for transit operations can improve road conditions, according to
experts.
“The only proven way to reduce traffic is congestion
pricing, but that has been politically unpopular” in the United States, said
Martin Wachs, a professor emeritus at UCLA’s department of urban planning.
“It’s been done 30 or 40 places around the world, and it actually increases the
capacity of the highway.”
The tolling scheme has encouraged drivers,
especially those with more flexible schedules, to stay off target roads during
peak times in places such as Singapore, Stockholm and London. New York City is
developing such a plan for lower Manhattan, and Los Angeles is considering the
approach.
While rail will not solve San Diego’s traffic woes,
it can help the region meet state-mandated reductions in greenhouse gases from
cars and trucks, Wachs said. “Transit enables higher density development and
reduces vehicle miles traveled in relation to the population, whereas highways
are associated with more dispersed growth.”
Ikhrata said he will ask the SANDAG board to amend
the Transnet ordinance this fall to include new rail projects so the agency can
start funding the environmental review process. Actual construction could not
start until voters approve a tax increase or the agency secures another source
of funding.
SANDAG officals have said the agency doesn’t have
enough money to complete all the road projects it already has planned.
The agency is strapped for cash because of declining
sales tax revenues and skyrocketing construction costs. More than $30 billion
in upgrades to major highway and transit projects are still slated for
completion through 2048, and officials estimate the region will be roughly $10
billion short.
sduniontribune.com
Sunday April 5, 2019
https://enewspaper.sandiegouniontribune.com/desktop/sdut/default.aspx?pubid=ee84df93-f3c1-463c-a82f-1ab095a198ca