San Diego Region Plans for Rail Expansion, New Border Crossing, More Bike Lanes

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) has released its $1.2 billion 2023-2024 budget, highlighting priorities that include bike lanes, a new port of entry at the southern border, and relocating train tracks imperiled by crumbling coastal bluffs. Joshua Emerson Smith describes the budget in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Otay Mesa East Port of Entry will create more capacity for border crossings for both passenger cars and freight vehicles with 10 toll lanes in both directions. The agency is funding a $51 million environmental analysis of potential options for relocating train tracks and stabilizing bluffs in Del Mar, where coastal erosion is putting close to 2 miles of rail at risk. And the region’s burgeoning 70-mile bikeway network is getting a boost with funding for the Bayshore Bikeway and new bike lanes in Imperial Beach and to the border in San Ysidro.

The budget also includes $20.4 million for the design of new and expanded commuter rail lines, most of which will go toward planning the proposed Downtown Central Mobility Hub, “a large station servicing trains, trolleys and buses, with a direct connection to the San Diego International Airport.”