The San Diego Flyer isn’t the answer to getting a better transit connection to San Diego International Airport.
But it should be part of the solution.
In recent years there has been intense focus on establishing a rail link to the airport, though the idea has been kicked around for some four decades. It’s hard to say with any confidence that we are closer to one actually being built.
What transportation and airport officials should do is expand little-heralded existing options: the relatively new Flyer shuttle between the Old Town Transit Center and the airport, and the Metropolitan Transit System’s 992 bus that runs a loop from downtown.
No, they’re not as sexy as a rail line — buses never are — nor would even vastly improved service likely match the theoretical turnaround time advocates project for “people movers” or trolleys of anywhere from seven minutes to two minutes.
Currently, the 992 and the shuttle are scheduled to run every 15 minutes, though the shuttle has been less than consistent. The MTS bus takes about 12 minutes to get from Santa Fe Depot to Terminal 1 and a few more minutes to Terminal 2. The shuttle can take between 15 and 20 minutes to the airport.
But at least they’re real, while delays and shifting plans continue to push the notion of a rail link farther into the future, if not into oblivion. The airport needs better transit service that doesn’t border on fantasy and cost a king’s ransom.
It’s time to reset expectations for transit airport access, and probably for the entire long-range regional transportation plan as well.
That $160 billion, 40-year blueprint by the San Diego Association of Governments calls for, among other things, high-speed rail lines across the county and various proposals for airport links ranging in cost from $2 billion to $4 billion. The plan was largely the brainchild of former SANDAG chief executive Hasan Ikhrata, whose rocky, five-year tenure ended with his departure in December.
The overarching plan has been plagued by questions about engineering and financial feasibility, and the priority on transit over highways divided the SANDAG board. Meanwhile, the regional planning agency is mired in a growing scandal about how the agency improperly charged drivers on a toll road in South County and whether staff hid the problem from the board.
Wading into all of this will be Mario Orso, a chief deputy at the state highway istration know as Caltrans, who was named as SANDAG’s top executive last week.
Surely there’s plenty in the Ikhrata plan that can and should be carried forward. But Orso and the SANDAG board likely will want to put their stamp on San Diego’s future transportation plan — if they can agree on one.
What that means for an airport connection is anybody’s guess.
A rail link to San Diego International has long been deemed popular and was considered to be a big selling point for the proposed half-cent sales tax increase for regional transportation projects put on the November ballot by labor and environmental organizations.
Five years ago, officials ramped up efforts to bring fast transit to the airport, and many scenarios of how to do that have come and gone since. In early April county leaders were told it would be at least three more years before a final route and mode of travel can be selected and an environmental analysis completed, according to Lori Weisberg of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The Federal Transit istration told SANDAG staff they needed to narrow the options — there had been about 20 at one point — and reassess plans using more recent, post-pandemic data.
The San Diego Flyer may not yet be the little shuttle that could, but it has grown in popularity.
Annual ridership on the shuttle rose by 73 percent from 2022 to 2023 — 75,680 enger trips in 2022 versus 130,912 enger trips in 2023, according to the Union-Tribune’s David Garrick, adding that the momentum has continued into this year.
That has happened despite no marketing and little promotion for the free electric shuttle service launched by the Airport Authority in November 2021.
Garrick noted that riders he talked with found out about the shuttle through word of mouth, and added the service also had been used by newly arriving migrants heading to the airport for flights to other parts of the country.
Annual ridership on the 992 had been around 400,000, which is about 1,100 engers a day. But ridership on the 25-year-old route plummeted to 165,000 in 2021 because of the pandemic and bounced back to 288,000 by last year.
For context, 40,000 to 50,000 engers typically through the airport on a given day.
The MTS airport bus also receives little promotion. Beyond advertising and increased runs, more could be done to improve the experience with better bus stops and coordination with hotels and the tourism industry.
Expanding service on the Flyer and the 992 would seemingly be helpful, but they have to travel on the same roads to the airport as other traffic. Elevated railways have been proposed for some of the long-range transit options.
Creating dedicated bus lanes on Harbor Drive to and from the airport may not be feasible. If that can’t be done, perhaps there are engineering approaches to better manage traffic specifically for the buses.
One thing that could be considered — although the bicycle community will hate this — is whether getting rid of the bike lanes on the portions of Harbor Drive near the airport would help. They are not widely used and, frankly, are sometimes harrowing to ride.
There’s a more pleasant and safer alternative — the paved bayside bike and pedestrian path that parallels Harbor Drive from Liberty Station through Spanish Landing and Cancer Survivors Park to near the east end of the airport.
Hard-core cyclists probably don’t like using the path because of walkers and slower bike riders. But that’s only for about a mile or so.
Ironically, the existing low-wattage transit options to the airport mirror, in a very bare-bones way, the most ambitious and expensive rail option proposed in the past. That called for separate lines from the Santa Fe Depot and government-owned property on Pacific Highway near the Port of San Diego istrative building just south of the Old Town Transit Center.
Two rail lines seemed preposterous when the idea was first hatched. Now even a single rail line may be approaching mirage territory.
It’s time to get real, where the rubber meets the road.
