Mid-Coast trolley line opens with no-fare fanfare

Trains began running on the Mid-Coast extension of the Blue trolley line from Old Town to University Town Center on Nov. 21, five years after the project was begun.

A year ago, the throng of passengers— families, elderly couples and students testing out the new rails with a free afternoon joyride would have been unthinkable but Sunday held packed cars and a celebration that included Cirque Quirk circus performers, UCSD Triton Cheerleaders, a rock-climbing wall and other activities at the University of California San Diego’s central plaza stop.

“The trolley brings the community closer to UC San Diego,” UCSD Associated Students President Manu Agni said at the opening day ceremony.

The new miles of rail also provides connectivity for two other key groups in San Diego: international Mexico-United States travelers, and Veterans accessing the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The international border crossing at Tijuana opened on Nov. 8 to non-essential travel after nearly 20 months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, over four million Mexican visitors traveled to San Diego and spent over $500 million each year, according to the San Diego Tourism Authority.

“As we start reactivating San Diego and Tijuana’s economy, this couldn’t have come at a better time,” Consul General of Mexico to San Diego Carlos Gutiérrez said at the opening event.

The Blue line, which begins in San Ysidro and used to terminate in Old Town, now ends at University Town Center shopping mall in La Jolla— residents in the bi-national region can now travel nearly 30 miles up the coast without a car.

San Diego MTS Vice Chair and National City Mayor Alejandra Sotelo-Solis said the expansion was about more than just transit service, and also creates new jobs, “more opportunities for education to residents of the Tijuana-San Diego region,” as well as wider access to healthcare.

The expanded line includes a stop at the VA Medical Center.

Approximately 10% of adult Americans in San Diego County are veterans, although not all utilize the VA healthcare system; the ones that do can now ride the trolley to the regional hospital.

“A one-seat ride from the border and our South Bay communities all the way up to University City on board our all-electric Trolleys is a phenomenal addition to our public transit system,” San Diego MTS Vice Chair and National City Mayor Alejandra Sotelo-Solis said.

Although the new section of track stretches just eleven miles, those rails cross some of San Diego County’s lowest and highest income neighborhoods, and include a stop at the Old Town transit center. There, riders can transfer to other train lines, including North County’s Coaster commuter train system, Southern California’s Metrolink system that connects Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties, and the national Amtrak train.

“This additional 11 miles of light rail will be for the region, and we expect that more people, and people of varying needs and abilities, will have new access to get where they need to go,” Federal Transit Administration Executive Nuria Fernandez said.

Fernandez also spoke to the environmental benefits of preserving the “very fragile ecosystem,” and the need to look to the future.

Director of the California Department of Transportation Toks Omishakin said the extension is “going to impact climate change” and issues around equity.

“This project is a renaissance of sorts into the future— 100 years ago this is how we got around,” Omishakin said, and building into a public transportation system is a return to how people traveled before individual cars supplanted light rail systems.

Approximately 60,000 daily passenger trips take place on the blue line. Ridership has grown from 15 million riders annually to 18 million annually over the past five years and is expected to grow significantly over the next 10 years.