Metropolitan areas are all about opportunity. San Diego and other metropolitan areas around the country grow because of the opportunities they offer to residents, business people and visitors. As a community, San Diego has the opportunity to identify future directions for its transportation system.
    Today's transportation system is supposed to do two things: minimize traffic hassles and offer everybody an equitable opportunity to make needed trips each day. Most of our agreed upon highway and transit routes will be finished by 2005. By then, we’ll be able to see if the system is doing what we intended.
    For many, rush-hour congestion is the norm, particularly for those who travel on freeways that connect the growing populations of North County and Riverside County with the growing employment areas in San Diego. That is why so much money is being spent to rebuild the Interstate 5/Interstate 805 merge, widen Interstate 15 and complete Route 56.
    However, a growing number of people who work here can’t find suitable, affordable homes. So, they move to neighboring counties, commute longer distances to work and add to the congestion on our interregional freeways such as I-5 and I-15.
    Transportation needs are region-wide. Under way are dozens of highway projects, north, south and east, plus a number of transit improvements, including a major extension of the trolley in east Mission Valley to San Diego State University and La Mesa. The pace of construction will pick up between now and 2005.
    The best way to explain what’s going on is to describe the improvements connecting the major urban areas in the region.
    In the north, I-5 and I-15 are the only high-capacity routes linking San Diego to North County and points beyond, so that’s where many of the improvements must be focused. About one-third of the total vehicle travel miles in San Diego take place on the northern segments of these two interstates.
    I-15 will soon get auxiliary travel lanes, primarily in the northbound direction between Route 56 and Escondido. These lanes, built between interchanges, will reduce the heavier afternoon peak-hour congestion by making it faster and easier to exit and enter the freeway.
    Completion of Route 56 between I-5 and I-15, expected soon after 2000, will reduce morning congestion substantially on I-15 south of Ted Williams Parkway. In addition, a southbound auxiliary lane will be built between Carmel Mountain Road and Route 56 to allow for a faster exit from I-15 to Route 56. Also, the reconstruction of the I-5/I-805 interchange, a carpool/bus lane, soon will be completed from this freeway junction north to Del Mar. The carpool/bus lane then will be extended north to Encinitas. And a northbound auxiliary lane will be extended from Mission Bay to Route 52, to match the existing southbound lane in the same area.
    But the improvement along I-5 with the most potential and unused capacity is the Coaster Express Rail, the commuter train connecting Oceanside and San Diego. The Coaster has the capacity to noticeably ease I-5 traffic congestion. Today, however, during the morning peak hour, only about half of the trains' seats are occupied. Operational improvements, increased marketing, more convenient transit connections at stops, and unfortunately, more traffic on I-5, will be needed to attract more riders to the Coaster.
    Within North County, the focus is on widening Route 78, rebuilding its interchanges to accommodate more traffic, adding lanes to the major arterial streets, and reconstructing Route 76 as an expressway in Oceanside. These improvements are all in response to the area's continued growth in both people and jobs.
    Maybe the best thing about the timing of these new transportation improvements is that they coincide with the resurgence and restructuring of the region's economy. Significant parts of our economy didn’t exist 10 years ago — the same goes for our transportation system. Today's regional transportation improvements are designed primarily to serve people’s travel needs and move goods in our growing economy.
    More than half of the jobs in the region's five fastest-growing industries are located around the I-5/I-805 merge and along Route 56. And, more than one-fourth of our financial services jobs are located near the merge.
    Looking at Downtown San Diego, the Centre City is growing now and has good growth prospects in the future. In fact, forecasts call for an increase in its share of the region's total employment during the next 15 years. This is unusual in a large, fast-growing urban area. Recently, job growth in most metropolitan downtowns has declined as a percentage of total regional employment. However, San Diego’s urban core is undergoing a resurgence with increases in both employment and recreational opportunities.
    Transportation access into Downtown is one of the most important reasons for this success. Although it might seem odd, Downtown is the most-accessible, least-congested employment center in the region. Our expansive, multidirectional, multimodal transportation system has made this possible. The extension of the trolley and start-up of the Coaster have accelerated the growth of Centre City. In addition, highway improvements to 52, 54 and 56 have taken cross-regional auto traffic off the freeways that go Downtown.
    Where Do We Go From Here?
    San Diego should identify its future directions for travel and transportation. And it should begin discussing and making these decisions as the San Diego Association of Governments updates the region's long-range vision for the transportation system — the Regional Transportation Plan — in the spring of 1999.
    This won’t be easy, and shouldn't be left entirely to government. As with all basic public services, transportation is everybody's business. Most of us travel every day, and all of us depend upon transported goods and services. Transportation and communication, in other words, hold our society together.
    What needs to be decided? Essentially, we need to identify the changes we are going to make in our travel habits. And, as travelers, we need to recognize that soon after 2000, the region will be nearing the end of its ability to build new highways and transit routes as the primary response to the demands for more travel capacity.
    So, the real challenge is to correctly identify the changes needed in the transportation system to accommodate our changing behavior, and how much we should invest in those changes. If we give any thought at all to regional travel, most of us simply focus on getting in our cars and driving to a destination. Small wonder: Every weekday in San Diego, we travel more than 64 million miles, mostly by car.
    Our driving habits probably won’t change much in the near future. No other means of travel offers the same perceived level of convenience and personal security as the automobile. Besides, our ever-expanding street and highway network invites us to indulge.
    This year, transit officials are responding to the loudest citizen complaints about congestion on I-5 and I-15. When completed in the next few years, these improvements will help a lot. But we need to plan further ahead. We should organize a project based on a simple premise: "Here's what we’re doing about congestion now. What should we be doing next?"
    The project should be specific to each major travel corridor in the region. This targeted approach should increase citizen interest and participation, and maximize the value of the participants' suggestions. Such an approach to a controversial topic entails risks. The alternative to taking the initiative is simply reacting to people’s complaints about the problem. We should take advantage of this opportunity created by greater public concern about traffic congestion to involve those who participate in the congestion to find ways to reduce it.
    Identifying the other big changes in our current and future travel habits should grow logically from our effort to involve residents in reducing congestion. We need to better understand the opportunities that will allow us to conveniently change our travel behavior, and increase the travel capacity of the transportation system.
    New technology, traffic management and peak-period travel pricing are important options, but not the only opportunities available to us.
    As Sandag prepares the 1999 Regional Transportation Plan, the agency will provide the public forum for this evaluation and for our decisions about travel and transportation in the 21st century.

Garry Bonelli is communications director for the San Diego Association of Governments. Click on www.sandag.cog.ca.us to learn more about Sandag.