As a Jan. 26 U-T headline observed, transit in San Diego “always seems to be at crossroads.” But is that because of political infighting over priorities and projects? Or is it one more sign of the immense gap between the assumptions of elected officials and what the public actually wants?
The vast weight of evidence points to the latter explanation. Less than one in 25 San Diegans commute using public transportation, and transit’s popularity has never increased despite years of warnings about vehicle use worsening climate change.
This doesn’t mean there are easy alternatives for officials as they try to comply with state laws requiring cities to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But when these laws lead to an embrace of what feels like costly and empty virtue signaling, of course the public should be frustrated.
Consider the city’s expectations for how people will get to work in 2035 in areas within a half-mile of an existing or planned major transit stop: 25% will use public transit and 18% will ride bicycles. When it was discussed a decade ago, the plan seemed far-fetched. Now it seems hallucinatory. The assumption that more than one in six commuters in much of the city will bike to work — compared with the present one in 83 — is particularly preposterous. There are few more common sources of irritation to San Diegans than the city continuing to build miles of bike lanes even though existing ones are rarely used.
That group, however, does not include Mayor Todd Gloria. In an interview last month with a U-T editorial writer, he was asked if he still thought the 18% goal made sense.
“I think it makes sense if we want to meet our [goals for] carbon emission reductions,” the mayor said. “It is always surprising to me how bike lanes engender such an emotional response really from both sides.” But Gloria said, “My job is not to respond to that kind of emotion.” He said it’s to keep adding lanes so far more bike commuters can safely get all the way from home to work and back — which he considers the key to sharply increased use — and to keep seeking funding toward that end from SANDAG and elsewhere.
Gloria’s bottom line: “We have to address climate change. We have to reduce emissions in order to do that.”
This framing will strike many as obvious — as common sense. Yet is it common sense for a city to have expectations of hundreds of thousands of residents that the vast majority will never meet? Hardly. That approach is far more likely to yield cynicism than serious climate progress.
