May 9 is D-Day for the La Jolla condo residents who will invade a San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) board meeting to lobby against a proposal to bring the Mid-Coast Corridor Transit Project trolley service closer to their homes, which they fear could negatively impact their quality of life.
\nThe project would extend trolley service from the Santa Fe Depot\u00a0in downtown San Diego \u2014 past its present eastbound curvature at the Old Town\/Point Loma border \u2014 north to University City, The trolley extension would serve Old Town, UCSD and Westfield\u00a0UTC. Construction is expected to begin in 2015, with service starting in 2018.
\nBut there\u2019s a lot of time \u2014 and a long way \u2014 between now and then, say\u00a0Cape La Jolla Gardens residents, who want to ensure residents\u2019 opinions aren\u2019t bypassed in SANDAG\u2019s efforts to select the trolley extension\u2019s final alignment.
\nCondo spokesman Michael Krupp said he and his neighbors aren\u2019t opposed to the trolley\u2019s extension; they just want a practical \u2014 not\u00a0a political \u2014 decision made on the path selected.
\n“The (original) trolley alignment has been moved 360 further south,” Krupp said, “which means its elevated tracks will be 120 feet from windows in half a dozen of our buildings with trains running 20 hours a day.”
\nJim Linthicum, SANDAG director of mobility, said nothing\u2019s been decided yet, adding that residents are welcome to plead their case about the wisest course for the trolley extension to take before the transportation agency\u2019s board.
\n“We understand this is a mega-project going through the heart of many communities,” Linthicum said. “It\u2019s a good project. We need transportation improvement. It\u2019s been in the works for a long time, and our job now is to build the best project we can \u2014 and we need community input.”
\nThe project and route, known as the\u00a0Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA), begins just north of\u00a0the Old Town Transit Center and travels in\u00a0existing railroad right-of-way alongside Interstate 5 to Gilman Drive,\u00a0then crosses to the west side of I-5, just south of Nobel Drive, and continues on to the UCSD campus. The route then crosses back over I-5 near Voigt Drive to the UCSD east campus and medical centers on the east side of I-5, transitions into the median of Genesee Avenue and continues down Genesee Avenue to the Westfield UTC transit center.
\nNine trolley stations are proposed along the way \u2014 at Tecolote Road; Clairemont Drive; Balboa Avenue; Nobel Drive; VA Medical Center; Pepper Canyon, serving the UCSD west campus; Voigt Drive, serving the UCSD east campus; Executive Drive; and the Terminus Station at Westfield UTC transit center.
\n“It ain\u2019t over ’til it’s over,” said Krupp of the most recent SANDAG trolley extension proposal. The plan was approved in November of 2013, followed by residents\u2019 claims that the path puts tracks too close for their comfort.
\n“We want to get the alignment back to where it was,” Krupp said. “Our big issue is having it done right, where the alignment makes sense and doesn\u2019t destroy the quality of life for the folks in our area.”
\nThe stakes are high, said Krupp, adding that he and other condo residents are taking “a much more aggressive role” in “putting on a full-court press. It\u2019s their quality of life \u2014 the value of their property.”
\nLinthicum said the exact alignment of the trolley route crossing Interstate 5 has been a “moving target” dating all the way back to the 1990s, when the trolley extension was first proposed.
\n“Going back 15 years or more, the trolley alignment was further south, much closer to the condos,” he said. “But for operational, engineering and aesthetic reasons, we moved it further north.”
\nLinthicum acknowledged the route alignment decision is tough, with lots of competing interests involved.
\n“That\u2019s why we\u2019ve been working and talking with all sorts of folks out in the community,” he said, concluding, “It\u2019s a balancing act.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May 9 is D-Day for the La Jolla condo residents who will invade a San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) board meeting to lobby against a proposal to bring the Mid-Coast Corridor Transit Project trolley service closer to their homes, which they fear could negatively impact their quality of life. The project would extend trolley […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Meeting planned amid trolley corridor-route flap","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11593,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-no-images","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}