SANDAG's Board of Directors approved the first ever “State of the Commute” report for public distribution today. The data-driven report offers an overview of key transportation challenges, and solutions for maintaining and improving door-to-door mobility across the region.  

“The public has listed traffic congestion as San Diego ’s number one issue —above other critical topics such as housing, education, crime, and growth,” said SANDAG Chairman Mickey Cafagna. “With this report SANDAG is answering the demand to assess commuter challenges and propose viable commuter solutions to keep San Diego moving well into the future.”

A major commuter challenge identified in the report is the fact that travel has outpaced other indicators such as housing, employment, population, and more directly, highway construction and funding. Traffic delays also have skyrocketed to nearly 50 hours per year per traveler. Because more than half of all travel occurs on the freeway system, increasing the productivity of the existing freeway system is critical.

Proposed solutions include new and more efficient managed highway lanes; making transit more time competitive to offer commuters and alternative to driving; and constructing more highway lanes. Expanding the capacity of the existing freeway system for carpool, transit, single-occupant vehicles, and FasTrak customers is an important strategy for improving regional mobility.

Commuters are already benefiting from major highway upgrades and will continue to see progress with the extension of TransNet. The recent completion of State Route (SR) 125 between SR 54 and SR 52 resulted in a dramatic improvement in travel times on I-8, SR 52, and SR 94.  Averaged over a year, it is estimated that regular commuters using I-8 saved almost 50 hours of time due to the completion of SR 125.

Note: click here for high resolution charts from the 'State of the Commute' report.

Project Manager:
Alex Estrella
(619) 699-1928