San Diego insists on its plans for greenhouse gas emissions to keep going in the wrong direction. Image from TransitSanDiego.org via Citylab
Despite what CA's courts say, San Diego insists on plans to widen freeways in its 2050 Regional Transportation Plan, even if it defies the state's ambitions to reduce climate-changing car dependency.
As Eric Jaffe at CityLab wrote, the story is told in one simple chart created by opponents of the plan, which shows that it projects that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would rise through 2050. TheSan Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) apparently has no problem with that.
But since the 2050 goals in the Governor's executive order aren't actually written into law, SANDAG argues that it doesn't have to follow them. SANDAG lost the initial legal challenge against its plan, and lost its appeal, but now intends to take the case to the CA Supreme Court.
Jaffe writes:
SANDAG presented its plan as a balanced vision of highway improvements matched with transit expansion. But opponents (the state attorney general among them) said that by front-loading road projects, the plan ensured car dependency in the region for decades and ran counter to California's climate goals.
On that last charge, SANDAG's own numbers show that the ... plan meets the state's short-term emissions goals (established in a law known as S.B. 375). Greenhouse gases fall 14 percent by 2020 from current levels, and 13 percent by 2035. But by 2050, the plan estimates that emissions will have fallen just 10 percent, meaning for most of the plan's duration they'll actually be on the rise—the reason being an "increased demand for driving" as people moved into more remote areas of the region, according to SANDAG.
Whatever the current law says, SANDAG is willfully ignoring the facts on climate change, and denying the urgency of avoiding its impacts by changing business as usual. So far, the courts have not agreed with SANDAG's short-sighted arguments.
SANDAG was the first region to adopt its long range plan after the passage of A.B. 32. Other regions in CA are paying close attention to San Diego's legal wrangling, as it may set a precedent for long-term transportation planning throughout the state.
Streetsblog California editor Melanie Curry has been thinking about transportation, and how to improve conditions for bicyclists, since her early days commuting by bike to UCLA long ago. She was Managing Editor at the East Bay Express, and edited Access Magazine for the University of California Transportation Center. She also earned her Masters in City Planning from UC Berkeley.