The San Diego Trolley is a light rail system serving San Diego County, California. The trolley's operator, San Diego Trolley, Inc. , is a subsidiary of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS). The trolley operates as a critical component of MTS, with connections to and integrated travel tickets with the local bus systems.
The trolley system serves 62 stations, over about of route, using four primary lines (Blue, Orange, Green, and Copper) that operate daily, and a "downtown loop" heritage streetcar line (Silver) that operates on holidays. There is one downtown station where all major lines connect, and thirteen other stations that provide transfers to a second line (two of these also provide connections to commuter rail systems).
The trolley began service on July 26, 1981, making it the oldest of the second-generation light rail systems in the United States, and the success of the system helped spark a nationwide revival of light rail. In , the trolley had the second-highest ridership of any light rail system in the United States, with 38,047,300 annual rides, or about per weekday as of .
History 2023 was the 42nd anniversary of the San Diego Trolley, and MTS prepared a brief historical review of San Diego trolleys, and in particular the San Diego Trolley. MTS also has a more extensive slideshow and timeline available. The last day of streetcar operation in San Diego was April 23, 1949. On July 19, 1981, electric railcars returned to San Diego streets on the first modern American light rail system integrated with its bus system.
Early history Electric rail service in San Diego traces its roots back to 1891 when John D. Spreckels incorporated the San Diego Electric Railway. San Diego's streetcar system had been replaced with buses in 1949, and by 1966 the local bus company, San Diego Transit, was facing a financial crisis and public takeover.
Planning for mass transit in the San Diego region began in 1966 under the auspices of the Comprehensive Planning Organization (CPO, now known as the San Diego Association of Governments, SANDAG), an intergovernmental agency of 13 cities and San Diego County.
Over the next decade, the CPO researched various technologies including improvements to local buses, express buses, heavy rail, light rail, and advanced technologies. The CPO also closely studied the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, then under construction. Ultimately, the early studies went nowhere due to disagreements between stakeholders and a lack of funding.
In 1975, the CPO published the Regional Transportation Plan which included a intermediate capacity fixed guideway system (an untested technology at the time) at a cost of $1.5 billion.
Metropolitan Transit Development Board In the early 1970s, three state legislative acts would set the stage for the construction of mass transit in the San Diego region.
The Transportation Development Act, signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1971, earmarked 25% of the state sales tax for funding transportation projects, including mass transit. A 1974 amendment to Article 19 of the Constitution of California permitted the use of gas tax revenues, previously reserved for highway construction, for construction of rail systems. Finally, a 1975 law established the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) with a clear mission: design, construct and operate a guideway transit system. The entire process was assigned to MTDB to assure accountability. The legislation was written and supported by State Senator James R. Mills, the President Pro Tem during this period and a strong transit advocate.
The MTDB formally started operations on January 1, 1976. The MTDB's enabling legislation and principles adopted by the Board required the planning give added weight to systems that satisfy a number of criteria: priority consideration for technologies available and in use, a system that is capable of being brought into operation incrementally, and using rights-of-way owned by public entities to minimize construction costs.
In December 1976, the MTDB launched its 18-month Guideway Planning Project to be held in two phases. Phase 1 involved the evaluation of potential corridors based on the CPO's 1975 Regional Transportation Plan and was guided by principles set by the MTDB board: the corridor should extend a long-distance and offer high-speed operation, the system should be at grade in a mostly exclusive right-of-way, capital costs should be low, and operating deficits should be minimized. Phase 1 studied over 100 miles of potential corridors with 45 miles of corridor recommended for further evaluation in Phase 2. At about the same time, a working paper presented an evaluation of four guideway technologies: light rail, two categories of heavy rail, and Automated Small Vehicle Transit.
In August 1977, the MTDB board selected the South Bay region for the detailed Phase 2 study. There would be several potential corridors to consider, including along freeways (Interstate highways I-5, I-8 & I-805 and State Routes 94 & 16), along existing railroad rights-of-way, and arterial roads.
In October 1977 the board selected light rail as the lone guideway transit technology to be studied (it would also be compared to several all-bus alternatives). In making the decision to pursue light rail, the MTBD board said it best followed the principles it laid out as light rail can offer high-speed travel, the right-of-way is flexible, and construction costs can be low when at-grade construction is maximized. The technology was new for the United States, but was well established in Germany.
Hurricane Kathleen On September 10, 1976, nature intervened, setting off a chain of events that would help decide the corridor to be used.
Hurricane Kathleen destroyed parts of San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway (SD&AE) Desert Line (east of San Diego), which at the time was owned by Southern Pacific (SP) railroad. The SD&AE offered freight service with a line that traveled between downtown San Diego, San Ysidro, northern Baja California (in Mexico), and Imperial County before connecting with the rest of the SP system in Plaster City, California. The hurricane caused $1.3 million worth of damage to the line ($ adjusted for inflation), primarily in Imperial County, east of San Diego. Freight service was suspended, and in light of the extensive damages, SP petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon the SD&AE on August 9, 1977.
The MTDB immediately began studying the SD&AE corridor between downtown San Diego and the San Ysidro Port of Entry for joint use by electric light rail and freight trains. In June 1978, the MTDB found the entire joint-use project feasible.
At the same time, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors became concerned about the potential loss of freight service on the SD&AE, which was seen as vital to the county's economic interests and the continued viability of San Diego as a deep-water port. The county commissioned its own study to examine using a portion of the SD&AE tracks for passenger service which would share the track with freight services, the motivation being the transit services could share the costs of maintaining the tracks. San Diego County proposed operating either commuter rail trains or self-powered diesel rail cars.
Initial implementation In 1978, the Interstate Commerce Commission denied the request to abandon the SD&AE, prompting Southern Pacific to offer the railroad for sale to anyone willing to maintain freight operations on the line. The MTDB stepped in and offered to buy the SD&AE for $18.1 million if the Southern Pacific fully repaired the hurricane-damaged line. The deal closed on August 20, 1979, with the final acquisition occurring on November 1, 1979. The MTDB quickly secured a deal with the San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad to continue freight service along the line.
The purchase gave MTDB ownership of two sections of right-of-way that could be used for mass transit: the SD&AE Main Line from downtown San Diego to San Ysidro, and the SD&AE La Mesa Branch from downtown San Diego to El Cajon.
With all the planning in place, construction of the "South Line" transit corridor (the southern portion of today's Blue Line) was able to begin just one month after acquisition in December 1979 and would be accomplished in two phases.
The first phase of the project cost $86 million, which included the purchase of the SD&AE, 14 light rail vehicles, construction of a single-tracked electrified light rail line along the SD&AE Main Line and construction of a section of new street running tracks in downtown San Diego. To control costs, only minor rehabilitation was conducted on the SD&AE corridor, with the MTDB replacing about 40% of the ties, welding the jointed rail, constructing electric catenaries, and installing an absolute block signal system.
Funding for the project came entirely from Transportation Development Act state sales tax and local gas tax revenues. Federal funds were not actively sought due to the locally perceived notion that San Diego would not qualify due to low population densities, uncongested highways, and undefined corridors.
In August 1980, the MTDB established San Diego Trolley, Inc. to operate and maintain the new light rail system and on July 26, 1981, service began. Trains operated every 20 minutes (timed to meet at four passing tracks on the single track sections) between 5 am and 9 pm and carried approximately 10,000 passengers a day.
In light of the strong ridership, construction of the second phase was started almost immediately, which involved double-tracking the SD&AE corridor and purchasing 10 additional vehicles. Upon completion of double-tracking in February 1983, the total cost of the project was $116.6 million.
The success of the San Diego Trolley would also spark a nationwide revival of light rail in the late 1980s, with lines built in several other mid-sized cities (Buffalo, Denver, Portland, Sacramento and San Jose).
Early expansions
The San Diego Trolley added a second line on March 23, 1986, that shared the same downtown tracks and traveled east to Euclid Avenue on the La Mesa Branch of the SD&AE. The new route was then called the Euclid Line (part of today's Orange Line). This line was extended to El Cajon by June 23, 1989, at which time it was renamed the East Line. The East Line's Bayside Connection extension to the San Diego Convention Center and Gaslamp Quarter opened on June 30, 1990. Service was expanded beyond the old SD&AE right-of-way when the line was extended further, north, to Santee on August 26, 1995.
The South Line was also extended to the north, reaching Little Italy on July 2, 1992, Old Town on June 16, 1996. The system was further expanded east from the Old Town station as the Mission Valley Line, which opened . It proceeded eastward from Old Town to Fashion Valley Mall, Mission Valley Mall, and San Diego Stadium on November 23, 1997. After the completion of the final extension, the South Line (which now traveled well north of downtown San Diego) and East Line of the system were renamed the Blue Line and the Orange Line, respectively.
The Mission Valley East extension, which opened on July 10, 2005, built the only underground station in the system at San Diego State University (SDSU), as well as its highest elevated station at Grantville. This line was then renamed the Green Line. The line also featured the first low-floor trolley vehicles, that allow passengers to board without climbing stairs and allowed passengers using wheelchairs to use a small bridge plate instead of the slower lifts on the older trains. But, the new vehicles could only operate on the Green Line, forcing passengers heading between Mission Valley and downtown San Diego to change trains in Old Town.
Trolley Renewal Project