SANDAG adopts 2050 Regional Transportation Plan

The San Diego Association of Governments board adopted the 2050 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).

The SANDAG board voted 17-1 October 28 to approve the plan. Lemon Grove mayor Mary Sessom voted against the adoption and La Mesa mayor Art Madrid abstained. The RTP covers highway, transit, and other transportation items through the year 2050.

“We now move into implementation,” said SANDAG senior regional planner Heather Adamson.

The projects in the RTP were based on currently-planned and reasonably available funding sources including private funding for toll roads, developer contributions, and tribal gaming agreements as well as Federal, state, and county revenue. The plan calls for $213.8 billion year-of-expenditure dollars.

“This is a compromise for the amount of money we have available,” said Oceanside mayor Jim Wood.

Local funding, including that from private sources as well as the county’s TransNet sales tax, accounts for 55 percent of the $213.8 billion while state sources comprise 28 percent and Federal money would fund 17 percent. Approximately 43 percent of the expenditures would be for transit projects. “This plan has more transit in it than ever before,” said Solana Beach mayor Lesa Heebner.

An additional $3.8 billion would be spent on regional and local bicycle and pedestrian projects and programs. The SANDAG board’s action also adopted environmental findings for the RTP.

Sessom voted against the RTP because state law requires the RTP, a Sustainable Communities Strategy, and the Regional Housing Needs Assessment to be coordinated with each other.

“I have no problem with the balance of transit and highways, streets and highways, in this plan,” she said. “My city is not prepared to support the EIR.”

Sessom also noted that the RTP would give the transit agencies Environmental Impact Report lead agency status on transit projects within incorporated cities.

“What it has done is taken significant projects which are going to impact my city and has precluded us from being the lead agency,” she said.

A separate SANDAG vote October 28 approved the Regional Housing Needs Assessment for the 2013-20 cycle. The 15-4 vote allocates the expected near-term housing need of 161,980 units to the 18 incorporated cities and the county’s unincorporated area. The unincorporated area’s additional 22,412 assigned units are comprised of 12,878 above-moderate income, 5,854 moderate income, 1,585 low-income, and 2,085 very low income units (new mobile home parks can qualify as low-income or very low income units). Each jurisdiction will determine where the assigned new housing units will be located.

“Some of us are going to be taking more than what we should be taking,” Sessom said.

Supervisor Bill Horn, one of two representatives for the unincorporated area on the SANDAG board, noted that the North County Transit District would be receiving approximately 17 percent of the transit in the RTP.

“I don’t think that’s a fair share,” he said. “The plan doesn’t give North County, I think, its fair share of transportation dollars.”

Horn still voted for the RTP but asked that his concerns be addressed for the RTP scheduled for adoption in 2015 and scheduled for SANDAG staff work beginning in 2012.

“For our region I think the plan is right,” Horn said of the RTP and its balance between highway and transit projects.

Wood also voted for the plan despite what he felt had shortcomings for North County needs. “I don’t want to tie up this money and funding that helps all the county,” he said.

A draft revenue-unconstrained transportation network used to develop the draft RTP was accepted by the SANDAG board in July 2010. During the draft process four revenue-constrained scenarios were presented which covered a transit-emphasis network, a rail-freight emphasis network, a highway-emphasis network, and a fusion network based on preferences identified in a public opinion telephone survey. In November 2010 the SANDAG board directed staff to develop a hybrid scenario which merged the fusion and highway-emphasis scenarios.

State Route 76 will be widened from two lanes to four between Melrose Drive in Oceanside and Couser Canyon Road, and in some areas east of Interstate 15 the highway will be widened to six lanes. SANDAG’s non-voting advisory members include the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association.

“I commend the SANDAG board for welcoming the tribes to be at the table,” said Barona tribal chair Edwin “Thorpe” Romero, who represented the SCTCA at the October 28 meeting. “We have an opportunity here to work together.”

The RTP includes privately-funded toll roads as well as highway, transit, and rail projects which would require publicly-provided revenue. The State Route 241 toll road between Orange County and Interstate 5 is part of the RTP, as are adding four toll lanes to the eight existing freeway lanes of I-5 between State Route 76 and the Orange County line and adding four toll lanes to the eight Interstate 15 freeway lanes between State Route 78 and the Riverside County border.

The transit portion of the RTP calls for high-speed rail between Temecula and San Diego International Airport and peak bus rapid transit between Escondido and Riverside County.

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