New San Diego Regional Plan Focuses on Public Transit

"A new long-term blueprint from area planners puts skyways and light rail stations in some of the county’s beach communities," reports Joshua Stewart, "making it possible for people who want to get to the ocean to make the trip from most of the county without getting behind the wheel."

That's the lede from a 35-year plan from the San Diego Association of Government (SANDAG). San Diego Forward: The Regional Plan, as its known, plans for the addition of 1 million new residents by 2050.

As for the organizing principles that will shape the region's approach to that growth: "The blueprint is built on the assumption that suburban sprawl will be curtailed, more people will live closer to where they work and along transportation corridors. There will be a significant shift in the number of households in multifamily homes. Neighborhoods will be more densely populated, and it will be easier to use mass transit like trolleys and skyway gondolas."

Also included is a "balanced" approach to transportation needs that would spend about half of an envisioned $204 billion in transportation spending on public transit, "new light rail lines, skyways and buses..." The article goes into a lot more detail about how the plan sets transportation priorities over the next 35 years.