Trolley Extension is Good, But What About the Freeways?

Moore: “I have heard a few anecdotes about people taking the trolley back and forth from Downtown to Carlsbad, but once you arrive, you need to find another solution to get around during the day without a car. It’s just not practical for most people.”

SAN DIEGO—The recent 805-freeway carpool interchange has increased the flow of traffic through that historic bottleneck, but more will need to be done in the future to reduce congestion on San Diego’s much-travelled freeways, JLL EVP Misty Moore tells GlobeSt.com. The San Diego Trolley’s Mid-Coast extension of the UC San Diego Blue Line from Old Town to UTC recently broke ground to officially begin the latest expansion of the county’s light-rail system. According to the firm, when this expansion is complete, the UTC office market will surpass Mission Valley as San Diego’s second most transit-oriented office submarket.

Downtown has the largest office inventory in the county, and nearly all of Downtown’s 12.2 million square feet of office space is within ¼ mile of a trolley stop, JLL reports. While 25.4% of Mission Valley’s office space is within ¼ mile, 34.2% of the office inventory in UTC/Eastgate will be within ¼ mile of a trolley station.