A Question and Comment About Expanding Public Transit in San Diego

For the past few years there has been much discussion and planning to expand San Diego’s public transit network. There has been tremendous optimism and potential surrounding the ideas of implementing new technologies. It is encouraging to know that progress is being attempted and capital is being allocated to make change. All of this planning and the included discussions brings forth many questions.

The question that concerns me most is the layering of new and old technologies. I am not speaking of the technical aspects of merging systems, but rather how the systems work together.

I ask: How do you plan to integrate new technologies onto the foundation of a public transportation system that is inadequate and does not work? Do you expect these new technologies to miraculously make the existing system functional and deliver people efficiently? Do you expect the merging of old and new systems to encourage commuters that would prefer driving to choose transit?

Through my experience of riding transit around the world, I have seen that the best systems are built around rail. It does not take someone that works for a planning agency or with a masters degree to see this. The bones of San Diego’s system is not filled out. To get the bones of the system formidable enough to accept new innovations and technologies, there needs to be significant action taken first.

One, rail lines need to be directly to downtown brought to the densest neighborhoods in the city. I have proposed a line that would go from Downtown to City Heights, via Banker’s Hill, Hill Crest, North Park, and Mid City. I have proposed a line that would get rail into Miramesa and Miramar, two commuting neighborhoods that has the ability to increase in density. I have proposed lines going into the Southbay, but thus far, the constructed lines have missed the mark. This is clearly evident in the new dedicated rapid busway which goes from Downtown to Chula Vista. The line bypasses Southwestern College, a seemingly minor employment center, but a campus which attracts residents from the city and Mexico. That is a missed opportunity to allow efficient travel, but also promote the transit system in general. Commuters never get the chance to have that “A-Ha” moment where they really consider transit as a viable option. Again, it missed the mark, but yet, the system authorities believe that new rapid systems will work. That rapid busway proved that the system is not willing to make the moves necessary to deliver.

I’ve said many times that being a daily transit commuter is an adventure. Not only does the system need to work, the people need to be programmed to navigate the adventure. Simply integrating new technology sounds sexy, but it will not work if the public does not buy into it. Getting new riders requires consistent ability, not simply introducing a new shiny gem. Sure, a new rail line opens and a study is performed to show the increase in ridership. Ah, the new system is a success! Unfortunately, there are more questions. What is the amount of riders that switched back to driving after the new spell wears away? The adventure of riding transit has to include other unmeasurable factors of life that data driven projections cannot generate. How does a transit rider adjust to waking up late and being in a hurry, or not feeling well, or some other life instance being brought forward? New system technologies that prop up the buzzwords like “rapid” will not get those potential riders into the system and keep them there.

That is the challenge of a auto-centric commuting culture that wants to gain more public transit riders. You must compete with the automobile. To do this, the metric begins with a daily commuter that needs to travel a minimum of five miles (ten might be more appropriate), owns a car, and the nearest transit station that can deliver the rider in one seat is a quarter of a mile walk. How do you get that person to choose transit? How do you get that person to choose transit over driving? What are the incentives? What is the timing? What is the adversity and adjustments that need to be made? This is not an easy puzzle and not a cheap one either. Maybe the main question is: What is the incentive for a transit system authority to actually solve the problem rather than developing wound dressings that sound more and more intricate and convincing.

It is pretty simple if you think about it. Make a commitment to solve all of the existing problems and shortcomings first, then integrate expensive new technologies onto a system that truly works. Regardless of the focus and commitment, it will be seriously expensive. However, my thought is that we should focus on getting our existing system to a great level first. We need to look to at systems that exist in similar sized cities. We should be trying to get out rail network similar to a city like Boston and then implement a rail expansion strategy similar to Los Angeles. These cities are not proposing some fantasy high speed network. Los Angeles understands that they once had an extensive rail network and they need to get that back before moving on to other things. San Diego also had an expansive rail network, but our strategy is to disregard that and layer on an unproven strategy. San Diego is acting more like Paris, integrating a new high speed commuter rail network such as the RER, but San Diego does not have the existing regular rail network that can support a Paris RER type system. Additionally, Parisians are a rail riding culture. What is a good metric to determine whether you have a rail riding culture is if you can pick up a member of the opposite sex via transit on a first date. In Paris, it would be ideal to tell your date that you will meet him or her at this location and your adventure would actually include a few rides on the train. In San Diego, to propose this idea to a date would entail ridicule. Our society places a high value on car ownership. It shows that you have a job and a life, where in other transit supporting cultures, riding the rail is second nature and owning a car has other value judgements. In some cultures, even in New York City, owning a car might be seen as inappropriate and might ask the question: “why would I do something like that when I can just go downstairs and take the train? I don’t have to deal with parking or traffic.”

Yet, here in San Diego, we still propose expanding highways and we judge our new developments by how much parking is provided. Parking is literally a driving force behind the way that we live. It is crazy to think that we actually make those determinations and expect to design cities that work. Another baffling thing i that we still design our rail transit corridors around highways thinking that this is the correct way to implement an effective system. The system needs to penetrate and get to the center of things rather than being on the fringe. By continuing forward in this way the public transportation system exists on the fringe of the built environment and more importantly, the system exists on the fringe of the mind of the commuter. Therefore, maybe we should focus on repairing all these other issues before entering the conversation of any transit that is “rapid.” The only thing that is rapid about it is the rapidity of lost capital and how rapidly people understand that it is not a viable method of commuting.