SAN DIEGO _ Elected officials are preparing to ask San Diegans to approve not one but two tax increases to fund billions of dollars in bus and rail investments, including a San Diego Grand Central Station to connect riders to the airport.
The ask comes at a time when many cities around the country _ from Atlanta to Houston to Los Angeles _ have invested heavily in public transit only to lose riders. Seattle is the only major metropolitan region in the U.S. that has seen ridership increase in recent years.
Those who hope to see San Diego follow Seattle's example say it will take more than spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars. It's going to take something politicians in Southern California and beyond have been reluctant to do: make it harder to drive.
"Los Angeles is very much a cautionary tale," said Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs. "You can't take a region that is overwhelmingly designed to facilitate automobile travel and change the way people move around just by laying some rail tracks over it."
Transportation experts have recommended bold steps for metropolitan regions attempting to get people out of cars and onto public transit, from eliminating parking in major job centers to encouraging dense neighborhoods with vibrant street life to ending freeway expansions and limiting suburban home construction. Most have also called for instituting some form of congestion pricing, such as highway and road tolls that fluctuate based on traffic.
It's unclear whether the San Diego region will see walkable urban communities sprout up around bustling new train stations, but the idea is gaining traction, at least in the region's larger cities.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, arguably the most high-profile elected official in the region pushing for a major transit expansion, has called for a "balanced approach," from building a new high-speed rail system to adding lanes to state routes 78 and 67.
It's the kind of strategy for transportation planning that some say has led other cities to spend billions on transit systems that many people don't ride.
In his own city, the Republican official has taken some major steps to increase density, including nixing parking requirements around transit stops and unveiling a plan to lift height limits on new construction in those same areas.
Still, transforming the region would likely take decades of dedication by local leaders and policies likely to upset many homeowners, said Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington.
"I won't say it's an insurmountable problem, but it's really hard to change it," Hallenbeck said.
"The heart of whether this will be successful or not is how much stuff are you going to build within walking distance of these stations," he added. "Can you stop growth from going out to Santee and Poway?"
