San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
MISSED TRASH PICKUPS FRUSTRATE SAN DIEGANS
Covid-related issues affect city’s refuse collections
The pandemic has caused a trash pileup at some San Diego homes.
In the two weeks ending Wednesday, there were 1,187 new or open complaints about missed trash collections on the City of San Diego’s “Get it Done” website. That compares with zero such complaints during the same time period last year.
A city spokeswoman told The San Diego Uniontribune on Friday that the city had an unusually high number of missed trash collections in September and October, when city trucks were missing an average 500 collections out of more than 100,000 pickups each day.
Typically, the system misses an average of 200 collections per day, she said, adding that collections have since improved.
“The department’s goal is to complete all scheduled collections for the day,” said Alma Rife, a supervising public information officer.
“However, a very small number of properties may be missed due to various factors, including high volume of waste generated as a result of people staying at home due to COVID, equipment breakdown, or in some cases, some residents may not have their containers out when their area is serviced.”
The COVID pandemic has caused people to spend more time at home, generating more trash. The extra tonnage — an 11 percent increase in refuse and recycling compared with last year — has put pressure on the city’s fleet of about 140 refuse and recycling collection trucks,
run at night when passenger and commuter trains are out of service.
The San Diego Pathing Study was completed by the firm DB Engineering & Consulting USA for NCTD and BNSF, the private company that operates freight trains on the coastal rail corridor. The Port of San Diego is one of the biggest West Coast entry points for new foreign cars and bulk building supplies that arrive by sea and travel north by rail.
“The collaboration of this important study by NCTD and its freight partner represents the best example of a win-win in public-private partnerships,” said Tony Kranz, chairman of the NCTD board and an Encinitas City Council member.
“We look forward to applying this framework in our capital budget planning,” Kranz said in a transit district news release. “We expect these findings will translate into improved passenger and freight services that support our efforts to increase rail service frequencies, improve our rider experience, and improve our economy and overall quality of life.”
Completion of the Convention Center train station is part of a package of related “mid-term” improvements expected to cost about $380 million, according to the consultant’s study, most of which is expected in a grant from the California Transportation Commission.
“We are always interested in projects that can help connect our Convention Center to the region for our visitors and for our staff,” said Mara Dougherty, director of marketing and communications.
The study also identifies a separate set of long-term improvements for the tracks south of the Santa Fe Depot that will cost an additional $700 million, including an Amtrak maintenance facility to be built in National City, better rail crossings and signals, and other changes to make trains faster and more efficient.
The long-term plan also includes the “potential” for a passenger station in National City.
“This sounds like a great transportation opportunity for our South Bay region,” said National City Mayor Alejandra Sotelo-solis in an email Friday.
“National City is committed to smart growth and has been working with the Port, Navy, SANDAG, and MTS (the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System) to create solutions and opportunities,” she said. “An Amtrak project could definitely fall into those efforts. It is essential to have Amtrak master plan the station as a mobility hub if this plan were to move forward. For the station to be a true mobility hub, it would be important to have Amtrak provide a commitment to start passenger service within 3-5 years from opening the service yard.”
San Diego is part of
what’s called the Los Angeles-san Diego-san Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) rail corridor, which in a typical year carries $1 billion in freight and more than 8 million passengers.
This year has been anything but typical, though, and because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, ridership on Amtrak and Coaster trains has been down as much as 90 percent. Since April, the Convention Center has been a 1,495-bed homeless shelter to help slow the spread of the pandemic.
Transit officials say 2021 will be a turnaround year and are planning for a longterm increase in rail service.
The San Diego section of the coastal rail corridor had 62 trains daily before the COVID-19 crisis hit this year. Traffic is expected to increase to 101 trains daily by 2030.
Increasing service will require eliminating structural deficiencies, such as bottlenecks that occur at places like the Del Mar bluffs. Trains must reduce their speed on the bluffs, and there’s no room for a second set of tracks that has already been installed along much of the coastal route.
The coastal bluffs also are subject to erosion, and require costly stabilization work to keep them safe. Eventually, NCTD and the San Diego Association of Governments plan to move the tracks to an inland route through tunnels beneath Del Mar. That will take 10 years or longer and cost billions of dollars, but the new route will be safer and faster.
Another bottleneck on the LOSSAN route is just north of San Diego County at San Clemente, where a nine-mile section of single track prevents trains from passing and slows trains throughout the entire corridor. Travel between Capistrano Beach and San Onofre takes 15 minutes, during which no trains can pass on that segment.
The recommended solution is to double-track at least some parts of the segment, so that north- and southbound trains go around each other, which would shorten the bottleneck and increase the capacity of the corridor.
Faster, more frequent commuter rail service is part of SANDAG’S 5 Big Moves, a comprehensive plan to invest in regional public transportation networks and to get more people to use mass transit.
philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com