Extended Rail Service Hinges on Sales-Tax Vote

Commuter rail service between Oceanside and downtown San Diego and trolley service to Mission Valley, La Jolla, Old Town and Santee will be established if San Diego County voters approve a half-cent sales tax increase in November, transit planners say.

The first detailed plan for the tax increase was presented to directors of the San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag) at a meeting Friday. Senior transportation planner Craig Scott said a third of the money, an estimated $750 million, would be used for public transit, a third for highway improvements and construction, and a third for street improvements.

The tax increase would be in effect for 20 years and is expected to generate $2.5 billion, according to Scott.

The referendum was originally scheduled to be placed on the November, 1986, ballot, but Sandag voted last summer to delay the vote for a year so it could prepare specific plans and develop public support. It also was delayed so it would not compete with a defeated sales-tax-increase proposal to pay for new and expanded jails.

“One of the reasons we moved it back of course was that we didn’t want two competing sales tax increase measures on the same ballot, that would have probably knocked both of them out,” Scott said. “Also, we needed this time to better prepare ourselves, to develop these plans we presented today and to get more input and comments from the public.”

About 100 miles of new rail service accounts for 80% of the public transit section of the expenditure plan, according to Scott. A 43-mile commuter service using existing railroad tracks between Oceanside and downtown and a 22.3-mile service between Oceanside and Escondido also using existing tracks are among the plans.

Trolley services in the plan include linking downtown, Old Town, Mission Valley, Jack Murphy Stadium, and then connecting with the already-planned East Line in La Mesa, he said. Also, the East Line--currently being extended from Euclid Avenue in San Diego to El Cajon--would be extended from El Cajon to Santee. Another 12.1-mile midcoast trolley line would link Old Town with UC San Diego and the Golden Triangle.

The other 20% of the public transit monies would be used to reduce monthly bus passes for senior citizens, the disabled, and students, and extend feeder bus lines for the new trolley services, Scott said.

He said plans call for about 85 miles of county freeways to be extended or upgraded, including widening parts of state routes 54 (South Bay Freeway), 76, and 78, and extending state routes 52 and 125.

A public hearing on the ballot measure, which requires a simple majority vote for ratification, will be held April 2 at an undetermined location downtown, Scott said, adding that other public hearings will be held in North County, East County and the South Bay during late March.

Sandag is expected to accept the final draft of the ballot measure at its April 24 meeting, Scott said.