How Did I Miss This One 3706

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:10:05 -0800, Scott en Aztl‡n

The Coaster runs along I-5, the Sprinter runs along CA-78 with at-grade crossings, and stations every mile or two. It's a result of terrible planning and replacing bus routes.

Yep. No poo, about 75 minutes to go 22 miles, from the last estimates the NC Times published.

I love the Trolley, but San Diego is spending too much too fast with too little benefit. Over $4B (yes, billion) is going to be spent supposedly by 2020 on expanding the LRT 6 miles along I-5. $4B could make I-5 6 lanes (rough estimates based on costs of other projects in SD County) all the way from Mexico to Oceanside.

I live in a transit oriented neighborhood, which I chose so that I could drive less. The problem is that a bicycle can outrun the transit most of the time.

San Diego County has problems on Sunday evenings? Not that I run into. Maybe getting back to the OC sucks then, but I'm returning to SD on Sunday evenings if anything.

The daily problems in SD are I-5 S at the Merge from about 7:30 am till about 10 am. I-805 has problems from I-8 to Mira Mesa Blvd during the same hours, but less so. Much of this is caused by the lack of expansion of I-805, which is 4N, 3S+aux, and just not enough for volumes over 200,000 ADT.

CA-52 gets backed up, since it's 2+aux and being used by over 100,000 ADT. I-8 does the same from I-5 to College Ave, because of the college and the high volumes. The Trolley opening between the Q and SDSU seems to have helped both roadways though.

CA-94 west of I-805, CA-54 between I-5 and I-805, and some surface streets (1st and 5th aves, Genesee, Friars, Miramar, Pomerado, Ardath, College, University, and El Cajon Blvd being the wost that I usually see) also round out the traffic problems areas.

LA has its own problems from not expanding on its freeways in the past 10 years or so. Generally OC is pretty good, until a mile or two from the LA or Riverside lines where things back up because LA-RIV haven't kept up with traffic growth at all.

Not really, they're just pooholes like Mission Valley, or Old Town. Old Town is a nice tourist trap, but living there isn't ideal with the airport just across the roar of I-5 and Pacific Highway.

Mission Valley gets the joy of the pollutants and noise from I-8, plus you can only walk to strip malls.

There's also National City, Chula Vista, La Mesa, and El Cajon that have the trolley pbutt through them. The problem is I don't like living in neighborhoods with high crime rates, and where I'd need to leave to see anyone I know

That leaves downtown, which has a lot of no-rent condos. I'm sure as hell not buying a condo in the SD real estate market, I'm a renter. That leaves very few areas for me to look into while still being on transit lines, able to walk where I want, and convenient for work.

I live in a building in uptown, which was built around 1900. f***, it's 7th Ave to be specific. That's sure as hell not Alpine.

We had street cars and cable cars in the neighborhood, and they all left by the end of the 1920's since they were going completely broke.

I'm ~30 minutes walking from the Old Town Transit Center, but that's only useful to me to get to Tijuana and Qualcomm Stadium. The Q is useful once a year to me. ~25 minutes walking gets me to downtown, so why take the Trolley there?

Anywhere else I want to go either requires a longer trip, or paying a lot of cash to a cab to complete the journey. Transit just doesn't work for a lot of users, even though I've spent about $14 since Saturday on sales taxes just for Transit. Add the $28 or so I've added for roads and freeways, and you can see why the wasted money is getting a little old to me.

In the last 3 days I've spent about $.50-mi I've driven on local sales taxes to expand the trolley and freeways. At least I use the freeways a bit.

Dave Hogan