Gaspar, a Republican who represents District 3, pushed for the removal of the concept of congestion pricing from consideration within the 5 Big Moves. She added that any plan with that in it would serve as a “deal breaker” for garnering her support.
San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones concurred with Gaspar’s motion in the minutes before the vote ensued.
“Personally, I look at the price of what the congestion pricing would cost on our roads and I’m actually mortified that anyone would think for one second that it wouldn’t hurt our businesses, our low-income folks, and literally the goods, the services, how much everyone would be paying for this,” Jones said. “And I’m appalled that we would even discuss this.”
But SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata advocated for leaving all options on the table during the early stages of the planning phase.
“By doing this, you’re taking an important tool — a very important tool — out of the toolbox, and you’re putting your stock in such an impossible situation to meet the (state’s greenhouse gas emissions) requirement,” Ikhrata said.
Gaspar’s motion proceeded to fail. The meeting ended not long after that vote took place, with Gaspar quickly exiting the room before any other SANDAG member.
Friday, July 19, 2019
SANDAG pushes ahead with freeway toll plan
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Had it up to here with the "tools in the toolbox" crap. Our mayor supports this punitive move. She just can't wait to teach us all a lesson and force us out of our cars to use imaginary public transportation instead or better yet, our bikes.
ReplyDeleteJones is right on the money.
Mayor Blakespear voted for the congestion plan and the dynamic pricing on local arterial streets (which includes Encinitas). She isn't a friend of the residents of Encinitas. Mayor Blakespear's actions are those of a tax, tax, tax politician. The dynamic pricing on the city's local streets would consist of tracking cars then dunning the owners for money. Is this why Blakespear was voted into office.
ReplyDeleteBlakespear is dangerous.
DeleteThese people are literally psychopaths. We should tax cow farts and tampons.
ReplyDeleteRacist ~!
Did hasah ride his bike to the meeting?? More carbon neutral would be if he walked to work from his home.
ReplyDeleteJust another "do as I say not as I do" appointed know it all.
Cities need to withdraw from Sandag...
Perfection fallacy.
DeleteThe idea that if someone or something isn’t perfect, then the person or idea is discredited, irrespective of whether improvements to the baseline have been made.
What if he drove to the meeting, but over the past year he has increased his use of bike/walk/scooter/public transport for other shorter trips?
Has he? Have any of the car shamers done so? Blakespear, aside from showing up at meetings in full spandex regalia? I think not.
DeleteNo one is asking for perfection, but they are looking for at least the minimum, not "do as I say, not as I do." They'll be called out as the hypocrites they are every time, 9:51. That's how it works. They shouldn't be surprised, nor should you, and you certainly shouldn't be making their excuses. That's just weird.
“Has he? Have any of the car shamers done so?”
DeleteI don’t know. Neither do you.
But somehow you are able to declare with fake certainty what the private habits of others are.
Congestion pricing is a much smarter way to pay for road use, but it should replace gas tax—not be additive. Since gas tax is a combination of federal and state, and SANDAG is regional, replacing gas tax would be difficult. But it could work one of two ways: (1) based on the make and model of your car, an estimated average mpg is used to calculate how much gas tax you likely paid each quarter, and a refund is issued to you or a discount is applied to your congestion pricing bill. (2) Local authorities work out a deal where tax isn’t collected in SD county on retail fuel sales. Instead, SANDAG pays the feds and the state directly from the congestion pricing funds. This may not work, as cars from the OC and LA won’t have transponders and will could cross the county line to avoid taxes.
ReplyDeleteBut if they can find a way, it makes hella sense. Many jobs have the flexibility to avoid rush hour but don’t only because of tradition. Most software developers at Qualcomm for instance could work 7-3 instead of 9-5 avoiding congestion charges and taking thousands of cars off the road during rush hour. By supporting the shift, Qualcomm would be giving their employees a faster and cheaper commute which would make them more competitive at attracting and retaining talent. They’d also be clearing the roadway for those who don’t have flexibility to have a faster rush hour commute.
Bottom line: our roads could handle a lot more cars without backups if the incentives were there to spread commute volumes out over a longer period of time. Congestion pricing creates those incentives. It’s not theoretical. It’s already working in other cities around the world.
The system should use both RFID tag and GPS to track roadway usage. If a camera snaps your license plate with no RFID transponder and no GPS, you are busted with a heavy fine. It’s very unlikely that both systems would fail simultaneously on one vehicle and not others.
Forgot to mention: it also levels the playing field with alternative fuel vehicles. If we want to maintain the incentive to buy green vehicles by slowly equalizing the congestion pricing on alternative fuel vehicles over a decade, I think most people would support that.
DeleteMany jobs have flexibility. Many people do not.
DeleteHave kids? No flexibility. Are the kids in school and sports? Really zero flexibility. Will Qualcomm change the school schedules for their employees' kids? If not, your solution there is ridiculous.
Have a spouse who adheres to a normal work schedule? No flexibility. Want to meet friends for dinner, take a night class, attend a council meeting, go to a club meeting, listen to a lecture, go hear a concert? No flexibility.
An "incentive" is not punitive. When we "incentivize" developers to include more low income housing, the waivers and concessions and incentives are, most definitely, NEVER punitive.
Congestion pricing is not "smarter," it's a further burden on those least able to afford it.
9:26, your social reengineering scheme is crap. How about instead putting up the hand to endless growth, vibrancy, and BIA profiteering? Problem solved.
There’s multiple kinds of flexibility. What about route flexibility?
DeleteIn the future, your in-car Mac system or Google Maps could present you options. Going to the airport? The fastest way may be I-5. Taking the 805 and 163 may add three minutes to your journey but save you $2 in congestion pricing. It’s your choice. This kind of incentive would spread the load and shift traffic not just time-wise but also route-wise to improve the efficiency of the whole road network.
Such a system doesn’t have to shift everyone to work. Shifting 5% of cars to another time or a less used route would make a huge difference. And if you don’t have flexibility, you will pay more, but you’ll also experience less traffic, so you are getting value in return for that cost.
Then make that argument and forget your punitive congestion pricing and unworkable "change your work schedule" exhortations. And forget about the masses taking to their bicycles and using nonexistent public transportation.
DeleteSounds like we just have to wait for everyone to buy new cars and the future will eventually take care of itself.
Nope. Doesn’t require a new car.
DeleteYour current nav system in your car can be updated, or you will be able to use Google Maps on your phone.
Most current nav systems and apps already present route choices and trade offs (e.g. Toll road and ferry options). The driver gets to choose which route option works best in terms of speed and cost. Congestion pricing route options are the same thing.
Cool beans, sounds like the congestion pricing scheme can dry up and blow away.
DeleteGiven that current systems will do the trick I guess you need to move on to getting people to comply with their use. Unless you need congestion pricing in a bait and switch to raise revenue....
That's nice, dear.
Delete[pat on the head]
Bless your heart.
Jus' going by what the expert is telling us. Your argument is with him.
DeleteYou are a liberal lunatic and likely a sociopath. You want to Bug Brother each and every car for control? Go back to where you came from. 'Hella' is non-native.
DeleteToo may people. The problems didn't exist or were minimal before the population exploded.
ReplyDeleteEncourage having fewer or no kids. Encourage moving from California. Discourage moving to California.
Way too many people worldwide. We're killing the planet.
The domestic birth rate is right about at replacement rate (stagnant population).
DeleteWithin the US, there has been net migration out of California for years.
The population growth is all foreign immigration.
In north county coastal though, the increase is largely people coming from overcrowded LA and OC.
DeleteMore leftist garbage to control the citizens. You people better wake the up. Fakespare and her co-workers are leftists and are hell bent on the utopia garbage. And by the way, it's poor countries ruining the earth. They keep breeding while whites have reduced child production world wide. There, that's the truth.
ReplyDeleteCheck yourself, 3:22. those on the right are pushing this too and laughing all the way to the bank. better to talk issues, but you seem incapable of doing so without labels.
Delete3:22,
DeleteSince you seem to like the status quo of traffic, tell us what you like about the current system, and how well it’s working.
3:25 it's not complicated. No labels? then how can you tell what's in a can when grocery shopping? See what I mean, more leftist nonsense. It a fact that white people are not having children as they once did. Is this hard to understand? I guess every newspaper in Europe is lying about birth rates for whites. Open your eyes
Deletewhat i will do is ignore you going forward. your foaming at the mouth broad brush strokes neither makes or wins any arguments.
DeleteWant to make the left crazier? Give em' facts
Delete“facts”
DeleteFixed it for you.
Wow, 3;22 maybe the lowest IQ, low function idiot on here. You should get an award, or special services, for the amount on stupidly you are able to display.
DeleteThank you 3:22 for speaking truth to sociopath power. Leftists/socialists/communists just want to control us. They're favorite word us OBEY goy.
DeleteYou people and suggesting all the others can have "flexible hours". That will be until you all can't find anyone during work hours to take care of your issues then you'll complain like children because no one is around.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly like the nuke plant that closed down when all the criers complained (the dead eyed earthers). Then the prices of power went up just like we said it would and NOW YOU ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE PRICES OF ELECTRICITY.
Idiots
Let me slow this down for you.
DeleteNobody said “all the others” time shift their commute. In fact, if everyone shifted, it wouldn’t work. It would just change the timing of rush hour with all the same cars competing for the same lanes.
So you have setup an argument that no one made to debate against, which is pretty weak sauce.
What was suggested was that SOME occupations have flexibility, and others don’t. Your example of a retail customer service job is an excellent example of one that has a good reason for keeping normal business hours.
Software developers were given as an example where an employer offering employees the option to shift the working hours earlier or later would be a win-win for the employee, the employer, and the inflexible rush hour commuters who now have less traffic.
It’s really really simple. I’m hoping you can get it this time. Good luck.
9:26 wrote "Many jobs have the flexibility to avoid rush hour...." Not "SOME," but "many." Try again bub apparently it's not simple enough for you.
DeleteOh brother.
Delete[eyeroll]
A typical California socialist plan. Tax, tax, tax until you have the haves (politicians) and have nots (citizens). Then it will be easy to control the populace. Look at the Venezuelans. It works until the revolution comes. So if you think the taxes are to much it is time to do something about it. Vote every democrat out of office.
ReplyDeleteYou are 100 percent correct 3:35. Oh' the whacky left will call you names and try and belittle you. Wait a tic, why, that is right out of the Lenin/Stalin playbook. What a shock. Like children with A.D.D they lose their minds when presented with truths. Frankly these leftists would be well advised to get back on their meds.
DeleteWhen the current President wins again it will be one of the most entertaining times of life. I can't wait to watch the show. Mental hysteria here we come...
wait, who is name calling? I think you have your parties confused. Hilarious, carry on!
Delete3:35 Typical small-minded, ignorant, simplistic, right-wing crap. No doubt you're a Trump fan.
ReplyDelete3:35 Venezuela's sin is that they dared to nationalize oil much like that once Democratic state of Iran did. Similar tactics used on Iran have been used there yet you blame socialism. There is a much bigger picture that doesn't fit your agenda.
DeleteOver on Encinitas Votes it looks like Dr. Lorri is having a hard time getting the posters to play nice. She keeps scolding them for breaking her rules.
ReplyDeleteSo here's a suggestion for what she can do to have everybody color within the lines and make her life easier at the same time.
Have anybody who wants to post send the text straight to her. Then she can strike any post she doesn't like. Any that are borderline, she can customize to suit her. Those that don't break any rules or step on her toes she can go ahead and post.
All the posts that she allows would be under the original poster's name.
Here's a suggestion: start your own FB page. Everyone, including you, can post under your own names and no "scolding." That seems to be a recurring issue for you.
DeleteSteve Wozniak recommended abandoning Facebook.
Delete12:49's suggestion sounds OK to me.
Deleteyour suggestion would sound ok to you.
DeleteSure, if you want to get mind-fucked, invaded and have your collected data sold, join Facebook! I'm with Woz on this one.
DeleteMention Milton Friedman and your average right-wing dolt will have an orgasm on the spot. We are constantly reminded of Friedman’s admonition that if we tax something, we’ll get less of it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aei.org/publication/if-you-tax-something-you-get-less-of-it-8/
Setting aside the veracity of that talking point for a moment, when we even mention applying it to something everyone wants less of, like traffic, those same post coital dolts scream: “It will never work!”
So which is it? We’re you full of shit when you repeated the mantra for decades, or are you full of shit now?
Cuz I think we’ve determined that you’re full of shit somehow.
Even though the federal government saved his ass twice when he was a young man, Friedman was against government intervention. Today he would be called a libertarian. He advised Reagan, a Republican, how did that work out for the national debt? He worked at the Hoover Institute. You might recall that Hoover presided over the start of the Great Depression. Friedman was against professional licensure. Right, I don't want my heart surgeon to have a medical license.
ReplyDeleteWe need to get rid of Blakespear! She is not representing Encinitas!!!
ReplyDeleteSomeone please step up and run against her - we're done with her (and I voted for her).
You voted for her ....... idiot.
DeleteCongestion pricing refers to SANDAG charging drivers to use the vehicle lanes on the freeways. This pricing is designed without a vote of the people to increase money for SANDAG, the regional agency that consists of representatives (from Council or the Mayor) from the 18 cities and the county in the region. There is also dynamic or value pricing that is used to charge drivers that drive on major roads (arterials) in each city or the county. If you want to drive on the roads, you will be charged a fee (taxed) without your voter approval. To avoid the fee you can take the bus, coaster, ride a bike, or walk. Congestion, dynamic or value pricing is Director Hasan Ikhrata tool in the tool box, the equivalent of a hammer over people who must drive to their work or other destinations.
ReplyDeleteSupervisor Kristin Gaspar made a motion to limit using congestion pricing only for managed lanes and to exclude its use for local roads and general purpose lanes. The 9 city representatives who voted against this motion were:
Mayor Blakespear – Encinitas, Councilmember Schumacher – Carlsbad, Mayor Salas – Chula Vista, Deputy Mayor Haviland – Del Mar, Councilmember West – Imperial Beach, Mayor Vasquez – Lemon Grove, Mayor Sotelo-Solis – National City, Council President Gomez – San Diego, Mayor Zito – Solana Beach. Councilmember Alessio of La Mesa abstained.
The motion failed.
If you have feedback on these new proposed taxes, send it to Supervisor Gaspar with copies to the SANDAG Board.
I am a liberal dem but won’t be for long. This is going too far. We just got ANOTHER gas tax and pretty much can’t do anything without registering or paying a tax in some form or another here. I hope every single one of these losers is voted out. I hate to,say it but CA needs a red wave to restore some sort of balance to our politics. government is not representing us. The foxes have proved they are not responsible enough to guard the hen house.
DeleteI ain’t putting a tracker in my car but will be sure to let people know how to hack it.
So easy to build a hack proof system for this. Use multiple overlapping technologies. Photo, RFID transponder, GPS. If they snap a photo of your license plate at a specific location and time, there better be a matching GPS track and transponder pings for the same car along the route, or you are busted.
DeleteTo beat the system, you’d have to drive without plates, which is a big fat “Pull me over please.”
And if you try to avoid by registering your car at your brothers address in AZ (for example), that won’t work either. Too many photo hits on that license plate locally for more than 60 days and the algorithm automatically flags you for failing to register here as required.
DeleteThere are actually ways to beat license plate cameras without removing the plate but they can get you for that too,. Who flips the bill to outfit all these cars with gps and transponders? What about tourist? Do they have to get a transponder to drive in San Diego or do the locals get to fund them too? It willl never fly, its nothing more than another tax to fund pensions.
DeleteRelying on trumpsters and the whole spineless repugnican party to do the right thing?
ReplyDeleteYou are kidding yourself, and not fooling anyone, about your former democratic leanings.
There has never been such a sell out to $$$ like what has been allowed to fester, while destroying our nations ideals. Our democracy has been greatly degraded by enablers who refuse to grow a spine.
We now as a nation have resigned from the UN commission on human rights to suit our enabled daily disgraceful in chief.
Concentration camps on our southern border, kids being torn away from their parents, any funding approved is being diverted to a stupid wall, instead of being used to hiring more judges to help the desperate souls who have already been tortured to the point that they are seeking a safer place to raise their kids.
And now, this imposter in chief is trying to rewrite our laws to prevent any immigration by the brown skinned refugees.
If they were white and from Norway, we all know how this daily disgracer in chief would react.
Declaring "white nationalism" is the source of all problems will get Trump reelected. It is just another form of race baiting.
DeleteWhile reading your leftist garbage it sure gave me a chuckle 1:24. I suggest you start taking your medications. To think the insane can vote is scary. So please don't vote again.
DeleteThis so-called "fee" should be challenged in Court. We all know it would be a tax, and another regressive tax, at that.
ReplyDelete