San Diego's Blue Line trolley extension cost twice U.S. average for light rail, study finds

By Joshua Emerson Smith, The San Diego Union-Tribune

San Diego's nearly $2.2-billion Blue Line trolley extension between Old Town and University City cost taxpayers double the national average per mile for light-rail projects, according to a study released Wednesday from UC Berkeley.

Still, the 11-mile endeavor — which created nine new stations, including those at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and UC San Diego — was completed in nearly half the average time of such transit investments, according to the report.

The project, which came in on budget after five years of construction, was "well executed," said Ethan Elkind, co-author of the report and director of the climate program at UC Berkeley's Center for Law, Energy and the Environment.

Transportation agencies in California, such as the trolley project's San Diego Association of Governments, face particularly difficult challenges, he said. Opposition from affluent neighborhoods as well as local jurisdictions can derail or delay projects, sending costs soaring.

"SANDAG did a good job with the hand that they were dealt," Elkind said, "but it's a cautionary tale in the sense that these are expensive projects."

SANDAG was able to sidestep such pitfalls by working closely with UC San Diego as an "anchor" stakeholder, according to the study. However, that meant agreeing to build expensive elevated tracks through the tony campus. New parking spaces, such as at the Westfield UTC mall, also helped ease community concerns.

"The lesson is, if you want to do it right, it's going to cost more," said SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata, who's spearheading a $160 billion vision for overhauling transit throughout the region. "This is a credit to SANDAG's engineers and planners."

The report, which analyzed three other regional rail projects in California, as well as the embattled high-speed rail project, calls on state and federal leaders to crack down on local opposition, or what the researchers call "veto points." The report found that planners often lack the expertise and authority to navigate power struggles with neighborhoods, given the country's decentralized approach to transportation planning.

"I don't think we need a model like China where they don't respect individual or property rights," Elkind said, "but at some point, we need to empower transit leaders to make decisions for the good of the region and not always give in to local demands along the route."

Elkind suggested that leaders in Sacramento could explore ways of giving agencies, such as SANDAG, master planning authority over local jurisdictions. This would prevent hang-ups over everything from land-use permitting to road closures required for construction.

However, Ikhrata said he's not interested in pursuing such an approach. "If you tell cities the state is going to take away your local land-use authority, they'll probably get you out of town very quickly," he said.

The report detailed the challenges facing several mass-transit projects in the state. It found that San Francisco's nearly $1.9 billion Central Subway project heading north to Chinatown has faced significant delays and cost overruns. The 1.7-mile project costs about 120 percent more per mile than the U.S. average, according to the analysis. The project, started in 2010, is scheduled to be done this year, taking two and half times the national average.

By comparison, the first section of Los Angeles' Purple Line (renamed the D Line), tunneling west under Wilshire Boulevard from Koreatown, is costing $3.5 billion or just 70 percent of the per-mile average for the nation. The report suggests that after two decades of such work, the L.A. region has started to fine tune its approach to ambitious transit projects. The 3.9-mile tunnel started in 2014 and is slated to reach the edge of Beverly Hills by 2024, with additional sections under the boulevard opening in 2025 and 2027.

The first phase of a Bay Area Rapid Transit extension to Silicon Valley opened in 2020 with the new Berryessa Transit Center. The cost of the $2.3 billion project was on par with similar rail systems around the country. The route 10-mile route followed a former Union Pacific railroad and consisted of mostly ground-level construction.

California's high-speed rail project is costing taxpayers about 1.5 times as much as comparable European projects, the report found. Researchers found the project is a case study in how not to build rail, being frequently short staffed and over reliant on contractors. A large part of its challenges have stemmed from designing routes without properly laying the groundwork to acquire land from stakeholders.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

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