Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Desmond is a San Diego County supervisor and lives in Oceanside. Bailey is mayor of Coronado. Minto is mayor of Santee. Bailey and Minto are on SANDAG’s Board of Directors.© (Karen Pearlman / The San Diego Union-Tribune)A San Diego Trolley station. (Karen Pearlman / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
In 2004, we were fooled by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). That year, SANDAG asked San Diego’s voters for a 40-year, half-cent sales tax with the promise of much-needed road and highway improvements. Voters agreed. SANDAG promised the tax would generate $14 billion for congestion relief to improve safety and match state/federal funds for freeway improvements to Interstates 5, 8, 15 and 805 and State Routes 52, 54, 56, 67, 76, 78, 94, 125. This list was the top bullet in the ballot statement.
Today, 14 years into the 40-year tax with many of the promised freeway projects not even started, SANDAG is making a new set of promises focusing on public transportation. SANDAG is instead promising traffic relief by taxing us out of our cars, forcing us into trains and buses. The new plan states there will be no expansion of freeways. The previously promised freeway projects are not in SANDAG’s new plan. However, San Diego County residents will continue paying for those undelivered freeway projects until 2048.
SANDAG’s new plan is the most expensive transportation project in human history, estimated to cost (in today’s dollars) $160 billion — even costlier than the International Space Station. So how will the agency fund it? More taxes on top of the taxes we are already paying.
Three additional half-cent sales tax increases will be brought before the voters of San Diego County. The first would likely appear on the 2022 ballot, the second in 2028. Unlike the 2004 transportation tax that expires in 2048, the new proposed taxes have no expiration date. Two of the tax increases would be levied countywide. The third tax increase would apply only within Metropolitan Transit System’s service area, which is roughly 70 percent of the region.
Additional new taxes to pay for this plan include Uber and Lyft fees and the conversion of 819 miles of existing freeways into managed lanes for transit and the tolling of vehicles.
One of the most contentious points of the $160 billion project is to tax San Diego County residents for every mile they drive. The SANDAG plan calls for 2 cents per mile and the state of California has proposed to charge 2.3 cents for every mile driven — a total of 4.3 cents per mile on top of all the other gas, road and registration fees and taxes. Recently, more politicians have come to realize the nightmare of a mileage tax and are willing to punt, for now.
San Diego County needs a balanced transportation system to meet the needs of the 21st century. Taxing vehicle drivers, who make up 97 percent of the population, to fund projects for 3 percent of public transit users is not realistic. Freeways and roads are the backbone of our transportation system and are essential to our economy. The county of San Diego is massive, with over 4,500 square miles. It is naive to think that communities that depend on roads, like Fallbrook, Alpine, Santee and Valley Center, could be effectively served by mass transit.
Single-occupancy vehicles are not the problem. Emissions are the problem. Instead of investing in solutions from the past (buses and trains), San Diego County should be investing in smart infrastructure and smart roads, zero-emission and autonomous vehicles. Instead, SANDAG is banking on congestion, frustration and taxing people out of their cars. Technology is the answer for the 21st century.
The new Mid-Coast trolley line from Old Town to University Town Center was approved in 1988. It opened for service last month. It took more than 32 years to build. SANDAG’s new plan proposes multiple fixed rail trains throughout the county. Technology will evolve multiple times over the next three decades. By the time any new train gets built, it will be obsolete.
Mass transit is one piece of San Diego’s complicated transportation puzzle. We should sensibly improve the service of existing rail and transit in San Diego County — however, not at the expense of drivers with a plan that taxes them out of vehicles.
The message is clear from SANDAG and the state: They want to force you out of your car and onto buses and fixed rail trolleys. These regressive taxes will hurt all San Diegans, especially the working poor who often can’t afford to live near where they work. We need improvements based on evolving, flexible technology, not with transportation modes of the past.
It’s time for San Diego County residents to say enough is enough — we won’t be fooled or fall for SANDAG’s broken promises, again!
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.
