After more than two years of public outreach, input and comment, the San Diego Association of Governments approved the first Regional Transportation Plan in California to contain a Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS).
Under SB 375, California's anti-sprawl law, the Sustainable Communities Strategy is a mandatory component of the RTP. Each region in California will adopt and implement a Sustainable Communities Strategy, but San Diego is the first. The Sustainable Communities Strategy is meant to change the way decision-makers make land use and transportation decisions, by connecting land use, transportation and housing decisions to meet state-mandated greenhouse gas emission reductions.
San Diego's 2050 RTP lays out a plan for investing an estimated $214 billion in local, state, and federal transportation funds expected to come into the region over the next 40 years.
“This RTP takes a balanced approach,” SANDAG Board Chair and Encinitas Deputy Mayor Jerome Stocks said. “It provides more transportation choices with an integrated system, it protects our environment, and it responsibly invests taxpayer funds.”
The RTP and SCS are not without critics:
"While the agency claims to support public transit, most of its transit projects are not scheduled to be built in the early phases of the plan. Critically, by the time public transit is constructed, our region will have adjusted to the plan’s massive new freeway projects – and will already have constructed development in far-flung areas of the county," writes former state legislator Jim Mills.
And, although SANDAG states that 36 percent of the funds will go towards "transit" in the first 10 years, this includes road and freeway building, which will receive a majority of the money.
NRDC, cautiously optimistic about the plan, writes "we are pleased to hear Boardmember Heebner commend staff for their commitment to “address and reverse the backsliding [of ghg emission reduction measures]”, as well as invite us all to keep SANDAG honest in the months and years to come. We will honor this request and ensure that through the Regional Comprehensive Plan and next Regional Transportation Plan, that SANDAG finds a way to make sure these critical pollution reduction gains are permanent."
