‘GRAND CENTRAL STATION’ PLAN ADVANCES
SANDAG begins review process for transit hub linked to airport
Local leaders are now driving a conceptual airport transit hub, often referred to as “San Diego Grand Central Station,” down an expensive road of technical reviews that could eventually end with taxpayers being asked to spend a billion dollars or more on its development.
Wednesday, the San Diego Association of Governments published a notice of preparation, or NOP, for environmental review of a central mobility hub — either at the Navy’s Old Town Campus or a site between Interstate 5 and Pacific Highway near the northeastern edge of the airport. It would become the region’s primary transportation center, connecting all rail and bus lines with a people mover to the airport.
The submission is a formal act alerting the public and various governmental agencies that SANDAG intends to prepare an environmental impact report, or EIR, through a state process mandated by the California Environmental Quality Act. Members of the public have until May 28 to provide input on what the agency should study in its report. Then, SANDAG will work toward releasing a draft environmental analysis of different options in December of 2022,
said Keith Greer, who is in charge of environmental compliance.
For the region’s lead transportation agency, the NOP is a small step, albeit a pivotal one, with monumental implications. It also marks the first major milestone toward the region’s quest to bring high-speed transit to the airport since the SANDAG board in 2019 agreed to more deeply study several options and routes, including an underground or elevated people mover.
“(The NOP) is the start of no point of return,” said SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata. “We’re serious about this . ... We’re not just making political statements.”
The grand central vision is one with several moving targets — it starts with pinpointing a location and identifying how to transfer travelers directly to the airport. The environmental report will study two location options, as well as an extension of the trolley to the airport, along with improvements to local roads and highway access, the agency said.
However, SANDAG’s preference is to build its central mobility hub on the Navy’s 70-acre Old Town Complex, or what’s commonly referred to as NAVWAR. The proposed NAVWAR revitalization effort is a joint commitment between the Navy and SANDAG, cemented in 2019, to redevelop the military’s obsolete cybersecurity campus with the transit hub alongside all-new Navy facilities, housing, retail and private-sector office space.
The Navy is currently working through its own federal environmental review process, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, to define the development parameters for the Midway District property. A draft version of the Navy’s document is past due and is now expected to be published later this spring.
The agencies are also in negotiations on a term sheet that will spell out how the land will be transferred and developed. The highlevel idea borrows from a 2006 deal between the Navy and Manchester Financial Group, and could see SANDAG build new offices for the Navy’s information technology workers — on the NAVWAR site or somewhere else — in exchange for the bulk of the property.
SANDAG’s work with the Navy on the Old Town site coincides with the airport transit efforts, which intensified a couple of years ago as the San Diego Regional Airport Authority moved forward on its $3 billion plan to redevelop the airport, focusing largely on an overhaul and expansion of the aging Terminal 1. The airport authority and its airline partners already have committed to spending $500 million toward related transportation projects, including building a transit station serving Terminals 1 and 2.
SANDAG officials say no matter which transit option is ultimately chosen, it will be a vast improvement over what exists now, which is a bus route that is about a 10- to 15-minute ride between downtown’s Santa Fe Depot and the airport. According to SANDAG, 99 percent of trips to the airport are completed via private vehicles.
Based on preliminary studies released by SANDAG in 2019, a nonstop, underground people mover operating from the NAVWAR site offers the promise of reduced airport traffic — by as much as 30 percent — and high ridership that could approach 40,000 passengers a day.
“To me, it’s like a relay race, where we’ve had the airport subcommittee (identify concepts) to make the airport connection better,” Greer said. “What’s happening with (the NOP), is the start of the baton pass. We’ve been running along doing our comprehensive multimodal corridor planning, and we’re getting to the completion of that, and the baton is starting to be passed off on to the environmental and engineering process.”
While SANDAG officials remain unwavering in their passion for a grand central hub and direct transit to the airport, a huge hurdle remains — funding it. The price to complete just the environmental review process is pegged at $70 million, with SANDAG expected to pick up the tab. The total project cost, however, is estimated to be $4 billion or more, of which $1 billion would need to be raised locally so as to leverage additional state and federal dollars, Ikhrata said.
He has previously said he would like to go to voters for a full-cent increase of the regional sales tax as early as 2022 to finance a long-term regional transportation plan costing more than $170 billion — including the airport transit project — but he is also eyeing 2024.
“As in many projects, local money has to be on the table and we have no local funding, except for $50 million (previously approved),” Ikhrata said. “We need to go to the voters for the rest ... If we don’t start a process like this we won’t ever do anything. This is expensive, absolutely, but it is worth every penny.”
SANDAG will host an online public scoping meeting for the central mobility hub EIR on May 11. Additional information is available on the project’s virtual engagement site.