Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
As a direct result of the coronavirus and the financial damage it has caused, many of SANDAG’s most extravagant and expensive initiatives are on hold. Policies that would have hurt San Diego taxpayers for years—if not decades—are at risk of being cut thanks to the budget shortfalls caused by the pandemic. It appears there may be a silver lining to the coronavirus after all.
SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata was planning to unveil his “transformation” of the transportation system in March. However, the virus had other plans. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) is now struggling to meet its current obligations, much less any lofty new goals proposed by starry-eyed bureaucrats.
Ikhrata’s “Big 5 Moves” plan was designed to create a countywide transit system as fast and convenient as driving. More importantly, it was the only way he saw to uphold the state’s mandate of cutting the per-person carbon footprint to 19% of what it was in 2005 by 2035. Why was this arbitrary number was chosen and was put over the well-being taxpayers? No one knows, but according to Ikhrata, the Big 5 strategy is the only way to achieve the emissions reductions required.
His plan had numerous major unanswered questions, and most notably, the proposal did not include a price tag. Ikhrata later stated that he does not know how much it will cost or if it will even meet the carbon emission requirements. “We don’t know that yet,” he said blankly. “We will not put out a plan that does not meet or exceed the requirement. If we come to a point where we don’t meet it, there will be no plan out.”
It appears that taxpayers have a grace period until 2022, when Ikhrata is planning to unveil his new plan. “We were planning to go for a measure in 2022,” he said. “Now, we’ll join forces and make sure we have one list for the region, and hopefully we’ll be supported. Now, it’s too early to tell how this pandemic is going to go, but eventually we’re going to go together to get the resources to build the 5 Big Moves system.”
Thankfully, the coronavirus has at least temporarily axed this broad, undefined, and inevitably expensive plan. The ultimate silver lining here is that a few months of a virus has gotten San Diego’s government to do what decades of activism could not: cut wasteful spending.
