It would be understandable if San Diegans thought their transportation network was on the ropes.
A budget shortfall forced the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System to scale back its expansion plan for trolley and bus service.
A hotly disputed, four-decade, $160 billion regional transportation proposal appears to be in limbo, at best, in the wake of flagging public support and the exit of the plan’s architect, Hasan Ikhrata, former director of the San Diego Association of Governments. Even before Ikhrata left under a cloud of controversy, an essential funding mechanism was deleted from the plan.
Audits have exposed serious dysfunction with SANDAG’s management, its public transparency and its ability to carry out major projects — like the ones promised under Measure G, the half-cent countywide transportation proposal on the November ballot.
How far approval of Measure G would go toward starting to fix the problems listed above, and others, is not certain. But the proposal would generate an estimated $350 million a year, a decent down payment for future transportation needs, though more tax increases would be required to complete the plans currently on the table.
Still, Measure G has much going in its favor. The proposal is backed by a broad coalition of unions, business groups, environmentalists and many Democratic leaders. The Yes on G campaign has raised about $1.7 million this year compared with $142,000 collected by Stop the SANDAG Tax, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
Another plus for supporters: The proposal requires only a simple majority vote for approval because it was put on the ballot through the initiative signature-gathering process.
Historically, voters have supported transportation measures in the county. The TransNet half-cent sales tax was approved in 1987 by a simple majority, then voters extended it in 2004 even though a rule change required a two-thirds majority. That supermajority still exists for tax measures pursued by government agencies such as SANDAG but, after consecutive court rulings, no longer for petition initiatives.
In 2016, a half-cent transportation tax received 58 percent of the vote — usually deemed an impressive majority — but fell short of the needed two-thirds because it was a SANDAG proposition. Still, that support came despite revelations that SANDAG officials were overselling how much the measure would raise and help the region’s transportation system.
Like virtually all transportation spending proposals, Measure G has become embroiled in the yearslong push-pull over whether the priority should be transit or roads. That generally splits the SANDAG board of directors along political lines, with central and south San Diego County Democratic leaders supporting transit and Republican officials mostly in the north and east wanting better, bigger roads for their constituents who commute by automobile.
Well over half of the Measure G money would go toward transit projects and related operations, maintenance and administration. Just 27 percent would go to major highway projects, including carpool lanes, and 7 percent to local roads, according to Emily Alvarenga of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Measure G comes with an outline of where the money would be spent, much of it derived from the long-range SANDAG/Ikhrata plan. But at least one selling point has become problematic and another could be.
A rail connection to San Diego International Airport has long been desired by regional officials, who suggest that’s something the public wants. But costs and other changing dynamics raised questions about whether that will ever happen.
Measure G money would also go toward shoring up the heavily used Amtrak and cargo rail line along the crumbling ocean bluffs in Del Mar, and eventually toward rerouting the tracks away from the shore.
But there’s uncertainty surrounding the future of those tracks, and not just in San Diego County. Regardless of what happens here, it is far from clear if erosion problems threatening the line in San Clemente and other areas will ever be resolved.
Then there’s the internal SANDAG audits, which exposed improper spending by Ikhrata and his staff and revealed that the agency’s South Bay toll road project has been a disaster that may cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
Over the past year, the Union-Tribune’s Jeff McDonald has exposed flaws in the project that wrongly charged thousands of motorists, along with detailing the audits that not only laid out the missteps, but told of efforts by staff to hide the problems from the board, and, thus, the public.
A more recent audit showed how staff rushed into another flawed, multimillion-dollar contract for the project while again hiding key details from the board.
Meanwhile, companies working for SANDAG that received “massive contract increases with little oversight” have contributed more than $1 million to the Yes on G campaign, according to Greg Moran at inewsource.
It’s not known how much voters are paying attention to all of this and whether the controversies will affect their vote on Measure G.
In the end, it may come down to a simple cost-benefit assessment by voters. They may like the idea of improving transportation, but many will be faced with at least one additional tax increase on the ballot for their particular city.
They may find Measure G and their local proposition to be a tax too far.
What they said
The New York Times about an appeal to a different kind of swing voter.
“Pornographic film actors announced they had launched a $100,000 ad campaign on porn sites warning that Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a Republican administration that has been a centerpiece of some Democratic campaigns — wants to ban pornography and imprison people who produce it.”
