SAN DIEGO — San Diego-area officials have begun the process of better connecting transit to San Diego’s airport, with talk of a “San Diego Grand Central” that would connect trolleys, buses and Amtrak to the airport terminal.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that officials voted unanimously at a Friday meeting of the San Diego Association of Governments board to form an inter-agency committee to study concepts for improving transportation to the airport.
The new director of the association, Hasan Ikhrata, said at the meeting that modern airports have transportation connections at their terminals. “The only two airports that don’t,” he said, “are LAX and San Diego. Los Angeles is going to have one. [See “‘Preferred developer’ named for Los Angeles airport rail project,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 29, 2018.] San Diego deserves one.”
A similar plan, which would shuttle passengers from the terminal to the railroad and trolley tracks, has languished since being proposed in 2008, the newspaper reported. The renewed interest is tied to a $3 billion plan to remodel and expand the airport’s Terminal 1, which could begin in 2020.
My wife and I visited San Diego last month, and we made good use of the buses and trolleys. Public transportation was ample for our touring purposes. The idea to extend the trolley to the airport is appealing, as the track is close by, but is it worth the expense? We rode the airport bus #992, which takes only ten minutes to get to the Santa Fe Depot from Terminal 2, a few minutes more from Terminal 1.
IAH, Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport has yet to have passenger rail connection to Downtown, Uptown and Texas Central’s proposed southern terminus.
The planned extention of METRORail’s Red Line beyond the Northline Mall site at the North Loop (I-610) to IAH has been dormant. METRORail’s Purple Line from Downtown is suppose to extend southeast beyond the University of Houston’s main campus to Hobby Airport.
Trolley could get over to the terminals from Santa Fe Station (where the green, blue and orange lines stop or come close) but it wouldn’t be cheap. The logical solution would be to “fly” most of the route over the median of Harbor Drive, in the manner of what was done to get to the Grantville station (two or more miles of construction). This would no doubt be unable to start before completion of the line to UCSD, which is some time in the future, near as I can see. In the meanwhile look to see a chunk of change spent studying what had been studied a couple of times before.