Transportation officials are working to narrow their focus for a new and improved public transit connection to San Diego International Airport. And cost could be the deciding factor.
SANDAG, the county's transportation planning agency, gave its board of directors an update on the planned airport transit connection at a meeting Friday. Staffers are currently working to pare down the number of concepts to analyze in a public review process due to begin late next year.
Thus far, SANDAG considered three main concepts: an extension of existing trolley lines, a new automated rail line and rapid bus service. Each of those concepts has even more variations in terms of length, routing and frequency.
Cost estimates in 2022 found the automated rail line, or "people mover," would be the most expensive option by far, ranging from $2 billion to $6 billion. The light rail options ranged from $1.1 billion and $1.7 billion, while the bus options ranged from $46 million to $70 million.
Transit advocates had hoped the airport transit connection would get a windfall of funding through Measure G, a sales tax initiative on the November ballot that failed by less than 1 percentage point.
Encinitas Mayor Tony Kranz said given the scarce resources that San Diego County has authorized for public transit, the lower-cost bus options made the most sense.
"I think it's going to be a long time before the resources are available to build a billion-dollar project that serves so few people," said Kranz, who will soon leave the SANDAG board after losing his re-election bid last month. "And so I would encourage consideration of extending these bus options and making them work better."
Regardless of whether SANDAG can afford to build a rail connection to the airport, it's already planning to implement near-term bus improvements as soon as fall 2025. That would roughly coincide with the grand opening of an expanded Terminal 1 with 19 new gates.
The near-term bus improvements could include increasing frequencies, installing bus-only lanes and giving buses priority signals at intersections.
