Breaking down SANDAG’s $125 billion spending plan | KPBS Public Media

Blood on the Road: How SANDAG's $125 Billion Transit Ideology Killed Highway Projects—and People

Twenty-one years after San Diego voters approved $14 billion for highways and transit, the region's transportation agency has abandoned promised road safety improvements, diverted billions to urban rail projects serving 3% of commuters, and rigged governance to silence suburban communities—while dangerous rural highways continue claiming lives at an appalling rate.

By [Staff Writer] San Diego County, CA — February 10, 2026

Five people died in flames on State Route 67 on July 18, 2025, when a wrong-way driver's Chevrolet Silverado crossed into oncoming traffic at high speed near Iron Mountain Drive in Poway. Roberto Martinez Oros, 68, of Ramona was killed instantly along with Marcial Rivera, his son Emmanuel Rivera, and two others when the three-vehicle collision sparked a brush fire.

Twelve hours later, another person died in a separate crash on the same highway near Quail Rock Road. In the days prior, three more fatal crashes claimed additional lives on the winding 24-mile route locals call "Bloody Alley."

Ten people dead in one week. On one stretch of highway. That San Diego voters paid to fix in 2004.

Twenty-one years ago, 67% of San Diego County voters approved Proposition A—the TransNet Extension—after being promised the half-cent sales tax would fund major highway expansions on Interstates 5, 8, 15, and 805, plus critical improvements on State Routes 52, 67, 76, and 78. The ballot measure specifically allocated $476 million to widen SR-67 from two to four lanes with median barriers—exactly the infrastructure that would have prevented the July 18 massacre.

Instead, the San Diego Association of Governments systematically abandoned 19 highway projects, knowingly misrepresented revenue projections to pursue additional tax increases, and redirected billions toward urban transit serving a tiny fraction of commuters. The agency then used a state-mandated governance change to silence opposition from suburban and rural communities whose residents continue paying TransNet taxes while their family members die on roads promised to be fixed.

A comprehensive investigation by The Epoch Times, based on original source documents, performance audits, court filings, and investigative journalism, reveals a pattern of fiscal fraud, geographic discrimination, and institutional indifference to public safety that has made SANDAG a case study in how unelected regional planners can override democratic accountability with deadly consequences.

The Original Promise: A Balanced Transportation Vision

When San Diego County voters approved the TransNet Extension Ordinance in November 2004, they were sold a specific, detailed plan.

The ballot measure promised to generate $14 billion over 40 years (through 2048) for "major highway projects along Interstates 5, 8, 15, and 805 as well as State Routes 52, 54, 56, 67, 75, 76, 78, 94, 125, and 905," according to SANDAG's official documentation. The ordinance mandated that 38% of net funds support "major corridor" infrastructure including highways and rail lines, while only 16.5% could be used for transit services or operations.

Specific highway projects explicitly listed on the ballot included:

Interstate 5 South: Add two HOV lanes from I-8 to SR 905 — $722 million
SR-67: Widening from SR-52 to Poway — $476 million
SR-76: Add two HOV lanes from I-5 to I-15 — $495 million
SR-78: Add two HOV lanes from I-5 to I-15 — $495 million
I-5/SR-78 interchanges — $1.234 billion
I-805: Express lane expansion — $722 million

The TransNet ordinance stated clearly: "This Ordinance provides for the implementation of the San Diego Transportation Improvement Program, which will result in countywide transportation facility and service improvements for highways, rail transit services, new bus rapid transit services, local bus services, senior and disabled transportation services, local streets and roads."

Highways came first in the listing. Transit followed. Both were promised.

Voters trusted this vision. A supermajority approved it. And for the first few years, SANDAG delivered—completing segments of SR-125, portions of SR-56, and beginning work on the Mid-Coast Trolley.

Then the broken promises began.

The Fraud: Revenue Projections SANDAG Knew Were False

By 2016, investigative reporting by Voice of San Diego exposed a pattern of systematic deception.

The 2004 ballot measure projected TransNet would generate $14 billion over 40 years. Internal SANDAG documents revealed that actual revenues would total only $8.7 billion—a 38% shortfall that agency officials had known about for years but actively concealed.

"SANDAG Can Still Deliver on TransNet Promises" read the headline of a 2016 agency response to critical reporting. Executive Director Gary Gallegos claimed the promised highway and transit projects could still be funded "if SANDAG continues to attract federal and state matching funds at a similar rate as it has in the past."

This was demonstrably false. SANDAG's own internal financial models showed the funding gap growing exponentially. Every year that tax collections fell short of projections and cost estimates increased, the agency did something simple: it added the widening gap to its projection of state and federal grants it "expected" to receive.

"If we're building our budgets based on the dollars that are needed, versus the dollars we actually expect to receive, then we need to fundamentally change how we build our budgets," Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey said during a 2017 board meeting, identifying the accounting fraud.

At the time, SANDAG claimed it needed $18.1 billion from state and federal sources to finish TransNet—up from $17.5 billion a few months earlier, and $10.5 billion in 2015. The agency had nearly doubled its "projected" outside revenue in just three years, not because grant opportunities had increased, but because the internal funding gap had widened.

The gap between revenue and cost expectations eventually reached $22.1 billion. Finally, SANDAG staff admitted the number was too absurd to defend as a "reasonable expectation."

"When SANDAG officials found out, they actively suppressed the information and then asked for another tax increase," wrote Voice of San Diego editor Scott Lewis. "That means that not only was SANDAG misleading voters on what 2016's Measure A could have built but it is clear now the money from Measure A would have been used to backfill previous promises."

Voice of San Diego reporter Andrew Keatts broke the story in October 2016—two weeks before the Measure A election—revealing that SANDAG's $18 billion ballot projection relied on assumptions that "San Diegans would spend far more than they had historically." Internal emails showed staff warned executives with "Omg" and "Wtf" reactions about the faulty forecasts a full year before the election. Leadership suppressed the warnings and used false projections anyway.

Keatts' investigation won him the 2018 San Diego Journalist of the Year award and directly led to Executive Director Gallegos' forced resignation, an independent investigation confirming the fraud, and state legislation overhauling SANDAG governance.

Voters rejected Measure A in 2016. They rejected another sales tax increase, Measure G, in 2024. The message was clear: San Diegans don't trust SANDAG.

But the agency's betrayal went beyond financial fraud. The broken promises had body counts.

The Blood on the Road: SR-67's Preventable Death Toll

The human cost of SANDAG's broken promises is measured in coffins, not spreadsheets.

State Route 67—the 24-mile winding highway connecting El Cajon through Lakeside and Ramona to Julian—has become one of San Diego County's deadliest roads. Motorcyclists call it "Bloody Alley."

Between January 2007 and December 2010 alone, 24 people died in accidents on SR-67, according to California Highway Patrol data. But the carnage didn't stop.

July 2025 saw 10 deaths in a single week:

July 18: Five killed in three-vehicle crash (Roberto Martinez Oros, Marcial Rivera, Emmanuel Rivera, two others)
July 18 (12 hours later): One killed near Quail Rock Road
Days prior: Motorcyclist killed near Woodside Avenue; one killed near Shady Bend; one dead and four injured near Branter Lane

May 2025: Fatal motorcycle crash at SR-67 and Ellie Lane

April 2025: Fatal solo crash on Pomerado Road

The pattern is consistent: head-on collisions, wrong-way drivers crossing centerlines, vehicles losing control on curves with no median barrier.

Every single one of these deaths could have been prevented by the four-lane widening with center median barriers that voters approved in 2004.

"We'd like to see a center divider down the middle of the highway all the way down, and we really needed to be four lanes or even five lanes," Andrew Simmons of Highway67.com told NBC San Diego. "Extra lanes that allow us to evacuate the community in the event of a wildfire."

The wildfire risk compounds the daily danger. SR-67 serves as the primary evacuation route for Ramona (population ~21,000), Lakeside (population ~21,000), and rural communities in high fire-hazard zones. When the next major wildfire strikes—and California's fire season ensures it will—the two-lane bottleneck will kill people trying to escape.

Caltrans and SANDAG finally began studying evacuation improvements in 2020-2021, but the permanent four-lane widening voters approved in 2004 remains unfunded and unbuilt 22 years later.

SR-67's Deadly Design: What Voters Paid to Eliminate

SR-67's current configuration creates a perfect storm of hazards:

No center median barrier: Allows head-on collisions from wrong-way drivers, passing attempts, and vehicles losing control on curves

Only two lanes: Forces slower traffic (trucks, RVs, cautious drivers) to impede faster traffic, encouraging dangerous passing maneuvers

Sharp curves and blind spots: The winding mountain route through canyons and ridges creates visibility limitations

Inadequate shoulders: Leaves no escape route when vehicles lose control

Wildfire evacuation bottleneck: The two-lane configuration creates deadly congestion during emergency evacuations

All of these hazards were supposed to be eliminated by the voter-approved widening project. Instead, SANDAG spent the money on urban transit while East County residents continue dying.

SR-76: The Second-Deadliest Highway's Delayed Promises

State Route 76 ranks as the second-highest fatal crash rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled among San Diego County highways, according to NBC 7's 2018 analysis using Federal Highway Administration formulas.

The statistics: 74 fatal accidents between 2008-2016 on the 52.32-mile route through northern San Diego County carrying an average 1.4 million drivers annually.

The 2004 TransNet promise: Complete widening from I-5 to I-15 as a four-lane expressway with $495 million allocated.

The reality: Only partial completion, with critical delays that cost lives.

The middle section from Melrose Drive to Mission Road wasn't completed until 2012—eight years late. The eastern section from Mission Road to I-15 wasn't finished until 2017—thirteen years late.

Meanwhile, people kept dying:

May 2024: Four killed, one seriously injured when a Chrysler 300 veered into oncoming traffic near Horse Ranch Creek Road in Pala Mesa
March 2025: Donna Okamoto, 58, killed in head-on crash near Lilac Road when an eastbound driver attempted to pass
September 2025: Jesus Contreras, 54, died from injuries when his Honda collided with an SUV east of Magee Road; his wife died at the scene
October 2025: One killed at Cole Grade Road and SR-76 in Pauma Valley

The cause pattern: head-on collisions from passing attempts and vehicles crossing centerlines—exactly what median barriers and four-lane capacity prevent.

The Abandoned Highway Projects: 19 Killed, Billions Diverted

In February 2019, SANDAG formally acknowledged what investigative journalists had been reporting for years: the agency could not make good on its TransNet promises to voters.

At a meeting of the Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee, newly appointed Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata spelled out which projects would be eliminated. Twenty-one unbuilt TransNet projects—19 of them highway improvements—were not part of the regional plan through 2050 that officials were preparing to approve.

"These projects, not only do we not have the money to do them – they're not the right projects for San Diego," Ikhrata declared, according to Voice of San Diego. "We're telling you that straight out."

The abandoned highway projects included:

SR-67 widening (Poway, Lakeside, Ramona): $476 million—completely cancelled
I-5 South HOV lanes from I-8 to SR-905: $722 million—cancelled
I-805 express lanes: Portions cancelled
SR-76 expansion (North County): Only partially completed after 13-year delay
SR-78 HOV lanes (Oceanside to Escondido): Only portions completed
Multiple interchange improvements throughout the county

Meanwhile, SANDAG's leadership was simultaneously advancing a new vision: the "5 Big Moves" regional plan emphasizing massive transit expansion.

"There was a lot of disappointment that some of the very ambitious projects were downscaled, most notably the Purple Line," said Leif Gensert, vice president of RideSD, a local transit advocacy group—inadvertently revealing the agency's inverted priorities. Transit advocates expressed disappointment over projects never promised to voters, while highway projects explicitly approved by voters faced permanent cancellation.

The contrast in spending priorities is stark. After admitting it couldn't afford voter-approved highway projects costing hundreds of millions, SANDAG's 2021 Regional Plan proposed:

Purple Line trolley from border to Mission Valley/Kearny Mesa: $11+ billion
Airport Connector light rail: $2.8 billion
Downtown San Diego streetcar: $1 billion
Mid-Coast Trolley (completed): $2+ billion

The agency claimed it lacked $476 million to save lives on SR-67, but could somehow fund $11 billion for a single trolley line.

The 2025 Plan: Transit Ideology Triumphant

SANDAG's 2025 Regional Plan—approved after the November 2024 failure of Measure G—makes the agency's priorities explicit and permanent.

The $125.2 billion, 25-year plan allocates:

Transit: $72 billion (58% of total spending)

$19.5 billion over the next decade (nearly half of all near-term spending)
$6.9 billion just for operating subsidies (because fare revenues don't cover costs)
$5.1 billion for new "rapid bus" routes of questionable design standards
$4.3 billion for LOSSAN corridor rail improvements

Highways: $25 billion (20% of total spending)

But only $8.2 billion for actual general-purpose roads over the next decade
$4.1 billion for "managed lanes" (HOV/toll lanes, not general capacity)
Only $1.7 billion for highway maintenance and operations

Local Streets and Roads: $6.5 billion over 10 years

Active Transportation (Bicycles): $5.5 billion through 2050

$1.2 billion over next decade (roughly 3% of near-term spending)

Flexible Fleets Microtransit: $206 million

This allocation inverts the formula voters approved in 2004. The TransNet ordinance mandated 38% for "major corridors" (highways and rail) and capped transit operations at 16.5%. The current plan dedicates 58% to transit overall, with operations consuming 35% of transit spending in the next decade.

"What's different is that we took an approach based on more information that we have now," SANDAG CEO Mario Orso told KPBS. "Both from the assumptions of revenues as well as cost of projects. And we scale it down to manage our realities."

Those "realities" include a 2022 decision to abandon a road user charge that would have funded additional transit, and the recognition that voters will not approve new transportation taxes after two decades of broken promises.

The False Economy: Spending Billions While People Die

SANDAG's funding priorities reveal an obscene trade-off between ideology and human life.

The agency is spending 33 times more on the Purple Line ($11 billion) than the SR-67 widening project ($476 million) that would save dozens of lives.

Over the past decade, Caltrans has invested over $60 million in "improvements" on SR-67—shoulder widening, warning signs, road maintenance. What it hasn't built: the four-lane widening voters approved, median barriers to prevent head-on collisions, or adequate evacuation capacity.

It wasn't until 2025—after the July massacre killed five people in one crash—that Caltrans finally began studying actual widening alternatives. Even now, the project remains unfunded.

Meanwhile, SANDAG projects spending $41.8 billion over the next decade:

Transit: $19.5 billion (46.7%)
Highway maintenance and operations: $1.7 billion (4.1%)
Local streets and roads: $6.5 billion (15.6%)
Managed lanes (HOV/toll): $4.1 billion (9.8%)
Bicycles: $1.2 billion (2.9%)

Transit receives operating subsidies of $6.9 billion over ten years because fare revenues cover only 40% of service costs. Every dollar subsidizing nearly-empty buses is a dollar not preventing head-on collisions.

The Geographic Inequity: North County and East County Betrayed

SANDAG's broken promises fall disproportionately on North County and East County communities while urban San Diego receives billions in transit investment.

Transit projects serving urban San Diego:

Purple Line: $11+ billion (border to Mission Valley/Kearny Mesa)
Airport Connector: $2.8 billion
Downtown streetcar: $1 billion
Mid-Coast Trolley: $2+ billion (completed)
Multiple rapid bus routes serving urban neighborhoods

Highway projects abandoned in North County/East County:

SR-67 widening: $476 million (Poway, Lakeside, Ramona) — cancelled
SR-76 expansion: $495 million (delayed 13 years)
SR-78 HOV lanes: $495 million (only partially completed)
I-15 express lanes: Partial implementation
Multiple interchange improvements throughout outlying areas

Of approximately 50 transit projects in recent SANDAG plans, only 6 specifically serve North County. Nearly all major transit investments benefit urban San Diego corridors.

"We're creating a new public transit in San Diego," Escondido Mayor Sam Abed said in 2016, referring to the Purple Line. "But we are only funding for the already approved freeway projects."

The geographic discrimination extends beyond funding to governance.

The Weighted Vote Power Grab: How the State Legislature Rigged SANDAG

In 2018, Assembly Bill 805—carried by Democrat Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher and signed by Governor Jerry Brown—fundamentally restructured SANDAG's decision-making to favor urban areas over suburbs and rural communities.

Previously, SANDAG required both a simple tally vote (one city, one vote) and a weighted vote (proportional to population) to pass measures. This encouraged compromise. AB 805 eliminated the tally vote requirement, making the weighted vote supreme.

The result: Just three jurisdictions—the City of San Diego, San Diego County, and the City of Chula Vista—can now control all SANDAG decisions despite representing only 3 of 19 member agencies.

"It immediately disenfranchised nearly half of the San Diego county population and eliminated the voice of most cities in San Diego County," ten cities wrote in a letter protesting the system.

"The old voting system at SANDAG encouraged both parties to compromise, for the good of the region," wrote Supervisor Jim Desmond. "The new system disenfranchises smaller cities, most of which are in North County, and there is a feeling of taxation without representation."

The 2023 Board Walkout: Democracy in Rebellion

The weighted vote's impact became undeniable in January 2023, when nine board members—mostly Republicans from North County—walked out of a SANDAG meeting.

In a tally vote, the board had elected Del Mar City Councilmember Terry Gaasterland as second vice chair with support from 10 of 19 jurisdictions. Chair Nora Vargas called for a weighted vote, and Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner was instead elected with support from only a few large jurisdictions.

"They've passed on an obvious opportunity for a consensus candidate," Vista Mayor John Franklin told inewsource. "It would've been an easy gesture to the tally majority and weighted minority."

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus explained: "The only way this county's going to come together and meet the needs of all the people in all the county will be if we have a collaborative, collegial, cooperative board. That's not happening now."

San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera called the walkout "a legislative tantrum," defending proportional representation. But his defense ignores that SANDAG is not a city government—it's a regional planning agency where communities with vastly different transportation needs should have meaningful representation.

AB 805's Hidden Agenda

The weighted vote wasn't AB 805's only provision. The legislation was explicitly designed to shift SANDAG toward transit and away from highways.

"The weighted vote was the centerpiece of the bill, enhancing the potential for the SANDAG board to put more emphasis on transit projects," the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

AB 805 also mandated project labor agreements favoring union workers (increasing costs) and allowed transit agencies to propose tax increases within their service areas separately from countywide measures.

Assemblymember Gonzalez Fletcher, now head of the California Labor Federation, designed AB 805 to advance a specific agenda: more transit, more union jobs, more power for urban areas.

The SR-56 Scam: Building Suburbs Without Transit, Then Blaming Drivers

The SR-56 corridor exposes SANDAG's most cynical deception: the agency actively facilitates dense suburban development while refusing to provide functional transportation, then uses the resulting car-dependency to justify its anti-highway ideology.

Since 2004—the same year voters approved TransNet—the Ted Williams Freeway (SR-56) corridor has transformed from open space into one of San Diego's densest suburban zones. Yet SANDAG has provided virtually no public transit despite mandating thousands of new housing units.

The Development Explosion: Thousands of Units, Zero Transit

Major projects approved and built along SR-56 since TransNet passed:

Pacific Highlands Ranch: 2,652-acre community that was "statutorily limited to low density residential development" until the freeway's 2004 completion. Once the highway opened, the area was immediately rezoned for "higher density residential and supporting retail and employment development."

Merge 56: 70-acre mixed-use project approved unanimously in 2020 featuring 242 residential units, six-story office buildings, retail, hotel, and movie theater—described by San Diego officials as "a new model for suburban development."

Pacific Village (Rancho Penasquitos): 324 units—99 single-family homes, 105 triplexes, 120 townhomes—nearly doubling density on 41.5 acres at SR-56 and I-15.

These projects represent thousands of new housing units crammed into the SR-56 corridor over two decades—development that SANDAG's Regional Housing Needs Assessment mandated and the agency's land use planning enabled.

The Transit Promised: Virtually Nothing

What transit did SANDAG provide for these thousands of new residents?

A bike path next to the freeway separated by chain-link fencing.

That's it. No trolley. No light rail. No commuter rail. No bus rapid transit with dedicated lanes. Not even frequent conventional bus service.

Councilmember Marni von Wilpert acknowledged the obvious: "I'm quite frustrated for my residents and for us as a city because we didn't plan for the increased density we're having in this area."

But this wasn't poor planning—it was deliberate. SANDAG and the City of San Diego zoned for density, approved developments, collected impact fees, and built housing. They simply chose not to build transit to serve the people they forced into car-dependency.

The Highway Inadequacy: Bottlenecks by Design

The original SR-56 opened in 2004 as a four-lane freeway. By 2013, it had become "one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the county."

In 2023—nineteen years after opening—San Diego finally approved adding two HOV lanes in a 2.2-mile stretch. Total cost: $39 million. What this bought: HOV lanes in only 24% of the corridor's total length, with completion expected in October 2025. Full HOV lane extension: "toward the 2040-50 time frame"—another 15-25 years away.

SR-56 carries over 110,000 vehicles daily on a four-lane freeway through one of the county's fastest-growing corridors.

The Climate Hypocrisy: Enabling Sprawl, Blaming Drivers

The 2023 SR-56 widening approval exposed the ideological bankruptcy at SANDAG's heart.

City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera voted for the project while admitting: "This is not a win from a climate perspective."

Councilmember von Wilpert was more direct: "Poor city and regional planning has created a situation where several dense developments are being built on the SR-56 corridor without complementary mass transit, making a wider freeway the only possible solution."

The scam is complete:

SANDAG uses state housing mandates to force cities to zone for high-density development
Developers build thousands of units along highway corridors with no transit
Residents have no choice but to drive because transit doesn't exist
SANDAG points to car-dependency as proof suburban areas don't deserve highway funding
The agency redirects highway money to urban transit projects
Suburban residents sit in traffic on inadequate highways while paying TransNet taxes for trolley lines they'll never use

It's circular logic designed to punish suburbanites for transportation patterns SANDAG itself created.

PERSPECTIVE: The Transit That Works vs. The Transit SANDAG Builds

Why Geographic Reality Matters More Than Ideology

The most insidious aspect of SANDAG's propaganda is the false binary it creates: You either support their transit vision, or you're a car-loving climate denier who wants more sprawl.

This framing is dishonest.

It's entirely possible—indeed, rational—to support excellent mass transit systems and oppose SANDAG's specific approach because it ignores geographic reality, abandons promised highway improvements, and builds transit infrastructure that won't work in San Diego's actual built environment.

What Good Transit Looks Like

Mass transit works brilliantly in Washington DC, New York City, Boston, Baltimore—cities with compact urban cores, genuine density, grid street networks, and development that predates the automobile.

Even Minneapolis-St. Paul's bus system works because planners accepted the car-oriented built environment and designed transit to complement driving, not replace it.

What these systems have in common:

Geographic density that makes frequent service economically viable
Trip patterns that concentrate destinations along corridors
Realistic expectations about mode share and car ownership
Complementary road infrastructure that isn't deliberately degraded
Political honesty about costs, benefits, and limitations

What San Diego Actually Is

San Diego is fundamentally different:

Canyon-mesa topography: Neighborhoods isolated on plateaus separated by deep canyons. Linear transit corridors don't work when destinations are scattered across disconnected mesas.

Sprawling footprint: 372 square miles—larger than New York City with one-fifth the density.

Automobile-era development: Nearly everything built after 1945 was designed for cars.

Polycentric employment: Major job centers in Downtown, UTC, Sorrento Valley, Kearny Mesa, Mission Valley. No single rail line can serve these dispersed destinations.

Military sprawl: Major bases create gaps in the urban fabric and generate car-dependent commuting.

The Transit SANDAG Builds: Ideology Over Reality

SANDAG ignores these realities and tries to impose an East Coast transit model on West Coast sprawl:

The Purple Line: $11+ billion for a north-south trolley in a region where most trips are east-west. Connects low-density areas to scattered employment centers. Assumes riders can walk the "last mile" in car-oriented neighborhoods.

The Airport Connector: $2.8 billion for light rail that serves business travelers staying downtown but does nothing for families in Poway or Chula Vista needing airport access.

Downtown Streetcar: $1 billion circulator in walkable neighborhoods 1-2 miles apart. Solves a problem that doesn't exist.

Rapid Bus Routes: 40+ routes mostly in mixed traffic, slower than driving, less frequent than needed.

The Geographic Trap: Forcing Density Where It Doesn't Fit

SANDAG's response to San Diego's geography is to change it through zoning mandates.

The SR-56 corridor exemplifies this: forcing thousands of housing units along the highway, creating density where none existed, then failing to provide transit.

This isn't "smart growth"—it's dumb sprawl with apartments.

True transit-oriented development requires building transit first, then density around it. SANDAG does the opposite: builds density first, promises transit later (or never).

The Honest Alternative SANDAG Rejects

A rational regional transportation plan would:

Accept geographic reality: San Diego is and will remain car-dominant
Build transit where it works: Dense urban corridors with concentrated destinations
Make transit competitive: Frequent service, dedicated lanes, direct routes
Maintain highway infrastructure: Keep promises to voters
Fund both honestly: Stop the false choice between highways and transit
Respect local differences: Urban areas need transit; North County needs highways
Let people choose: Provide options, don't engineer behavior through deprivation

The Personal vs. The Political

Supporting mass transit as a concept and opposing SANDAG's execution aren't contradictory.

Someone who rode the DC Metro, used buses in Minneapolis, appreciated Orange County's bus network, and recognized immediately upon arriving in San Diego that "you couldn't go anywhere without a car" understands something SANDAG refuses to acknowledge:

Geography matters. Built environment matters. Trip patterns matter. You can't impose East Coast transit solutions on West Coast sprawl and expect success.

The Tragedy of Wasted Resources

The $72 billion spent on transit over 25 years could transform San Diego if applied strategically:

$20 billion for urban rail in genuinely dense corridors
$15 billion for frequent bus service with dedicated lanes
$20 billion for promised highway improvements
$10 billion for complete streets in urban neighborhoods
$7 billion for park-and-ride facilities

This balanced approach would deliver excellent transit where density supports it, keep highway promises, improve safety on dangerous roads, and respect different transportation needs.

Instead, SANDAG spends $72 billion on transit serving <5% of trips while highways deteriorate and people die.

The Mileage Tax Endgame

California's proposed mileage tax—replacing gas tax revenue lost to EV adoption—reveals the endgame.

When someone in Ramona has to drive because SANDAG abandoned the SR-67 widening, then gets charged per mile for driving, that's not policy—it's punishment for living in the wrong place.

The honest version: "EVs don't pay gas taxes, so we need new road funding."

The actual version: "We'll charge you per mile to discourage driving and force you onto inadequate transit."

For people who've experienced actual good transit on the East Coast, San Diego's system is a joke. Being forced to depend on buses that come every 30-60 minutes, don't go where needed, and stop at 10 PM would be cruel.

The Bottom Line

This investigation isn't anti-transit. It's anti-fraud, anti-incompetence, and anti-ideology masquerading as planning.

If SANDAG had kept highway promises, built transit where it works, been honest about costs, respected geographic reality, and allowed people to choose—there would be no story.

Instead, the agency abandoned 19 highway projects, built transit where geography dooms it to failure, lied about revenue, ignored San Diego's sprawl, and used state mandates to override voter preferences.

That's the scandal. Not transit vs. highways. Dishonesty vs. accountability.

The Revenue Reality: Who Pays, Who Benefits

TransNet—the voter-approved sales tax funding these projects—is paid predominantly by drivers and suburban/rural residents who make the majority of retail purchases countywide.

Local funding sources ($71.5 billion through 2050):

TransNet sales tax: $10.5 billion
Local city/county general funds: $10.4 billion
Transportation Development Act: $5.1 billion
Fares, FasTrak tolls, gas taxes: $17 billion
Future ballot measures (if approved): $18 billion

Local taxpayers fund TransNet equally regardless of transit use, yet 58% of spending prioritizes the small minority who ride buses and trains while highway projects serving the vast majority face cancellation.

Transit ridership represents less than 3% of regional trips. Solo driving represents over 75% of regional commutes.

The Climate Excuse: State Mandates vs. Democratic Accountability

SANDAG officials justify abandoning highway projects by citing state climate laws—specifically SB 375 and SB 743—that mandate greenhouse gas reductions and discourage vehicle miles traveled.

The Sustainable Communities Strategy required by SB 375 mandates 19% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2035 compared to 2005 baseline. SANDAG argues this makes many voter-approved highway expansions impossible.

This reasoning reveals a fundamental problem: Unelected state bureaucrats and regional planners can override local voter decisions by imposing requirements that make voter-approved projects illegal.

Voters approved TransNet highway projects in 2004. The legislature passed SB 375 in 2008. SANDAG now claims the later law voids the earlier voter mandate—without returning to voters for approval.

Ironically, the plan admits managed lanes may increase Vehicle Miles Traveled and emissions, according to Appendix N—undermining SANDAG's climate justification.

The Audits: Waste, Fraud, and No Accountability

Multiple audits between 2017 and 2022 documented SANDAG's financial mismanagement:

Millions in inappropriate spending on lavish travel and staff dinners
Unused bike lanes costing $6-9 million per mile
$290 million in contracts awarded without proper justification
Agency politicians doubling overhead charges, leaving less for projects

A federal criminal investigation examining SANDAG's contracting closed in December 2024 with no charges filed.

The Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee approved plans abandoning voter-mandated projects without forcing accountability.

No SANDAG official has been fired for abandoning widening projects. No one has been prosecuted for misappropriating voter-approved funds.

The 2024 Reckoning: Voters Reject More Taxes

In November 2024, San Diego County voters soundly rejected Measure G, a half-cent sales tax increase funding SANDAG's transit-heavy vision.

The defeat reflected voter skepticism born of broken TransNet promises.

Board Chairwoman Dianne Jacob had warned in 2019: Break faith with voters on highway projects, "and the public may never again approve new transportation proposals."

She was right.

The Media Failure: How San Diego's Press Became SANDAG's PR Department

Only Independent Web Outlets Did the Job Legacy Media Abandoned

San Diego's mainstream media functioned as stenographers, not watchdogs, enabling SANDAG's fraud to continue unchecked.

Andrew Keatts at Voice of San Diego broke the revenue fraud story in October 2016—two weeks before the Measure A election. His investigation exposed forecasts SANDAG knew were wrong, internal emails showing staff warnings ignored, and leadership using false projections for an active ballot measure.

Keatts won 2018 San Diego Journalist of the Year. His work directly led to Executive Director Gallegos' forced resignation, an independent investigation, and state legislation overhauling SANDAG governance.

Voice of San Diego described their approach: "We were a dog with a bone when we broke a big story. We would grab the powers that be by the lapels and demand a response."

That's what journalism is supposed to be.

What the Union-Tribune Did: PR Work

While Keatts exposed fraud, the San Diego Union-Tribune published SANDAG's lies uncritically.

When Gallegos told the Union-Tribune the Measure A revenue estimate was created separately and errors weren't discovered until November, the paper published his explanation without challenging it.

This was false. SANDAG staffers had explicitly told executives in December 2015—a full year before the election—that forecasts were wrong.

The Union-Tribune had access to the same public records as Voice of San Diego. They chose not to investigate.

The Pattern: Stenography Masquerading as Journalism

Review the Union-Tribune's SANDAG coverage from 2004-2016:

Extensive coverage of projects "planned" and "promised"
Uncritical reporting of revenue projections
Ribbon-cutting ceremony features
Quotes from officials without skepticism

Missing: Investigative analysis of revenue assumptions, challenges to cost projections, follow-up on abandoned projects, accountability for broken promises, examination of death toll on unfixed highways.

Why Legacy Media Failed

Several factors explain the failure:

Access Journalism: Beat reporters depend on SANDAG for stories. Aggressive questioning risks losing access.

Ideological Alignment: Many journalists personally support transit expansion, making them reluctant to investigate.

Complexity Bias: SANDAG's financial models are complex. Easier to report what they say than analyze truth.

Resource Constraints: Investigative journalism is expensive. Cheaper to rewrite press releases.

Urban Geography: Media outlets headquartered downtown, staffed by urban residents, naturally favor urban perspectives.

Institutional Coziness: SANDAG officials and media executives inhabit the same civic circles.

The Consequence: Fraud Flourished in Darkness

If the Union-Tribune had investigated SANDAG's revenue projections in 2010-2014, the Measure A fraud might never have happened.

If mainstream media had covered abandoned highway projects starting in 2015-2016, voters would have known SANDAG was breaking promises before being asked to approve Measure G.

If local news had connected broken SR-67 promises to the mounting death toll, public outrage might have forced accountability.

Instead: silence, stenography, soft-pedaled coverage.

The media's failure enabled SANDAG's fraud.

The Independent Web Alternative

Voice of San Diego operates on a nonprofit model funded by donations and grants, providing independence advertising-dependent media lack.

Other independent outlets like inewsource, Times of San Diego (under new editor Andrew Keatts as of September 2025), OB Rag, and community blogs provide skeptical coverage legacy media abandoned.

But these outlets operate on shoestring budgets. Voice of San Diego's entire newsroom is smaller than the Union-Tribune's sports section was 20 years ago.

Critical SANDAG coverage exists but reaches a fraction of the audience uncritical Union-Tribune coverage reaches.

The Broader Implication: Governance Without Oversight

When newspapers shrink, when investigative reporting disappears, when beat reporters become stenographers—government agencies operate without effective oversight.

SANDAG's fraud flourished because no one was watching except a handful of nonprofit journalists with limited reach.

Democracy requires an informed electorate. An informed electorate requires journalism that investigates, challenges, and holds power accountable.

San Diego has lost that journalism—except at the margins.

CODA: The Uncertain Future of Accountability

When Watchdogs Can't Afford to Bark

The investigative journalism that exposed SANDAG's fraud exists on life support.

Voice of San Diego, Times of San Diego, inewsource, and outlets like the OB Rag operate on donation-driven models in an economic climate hostile to independent media.

Foundation grants dry up. Individual donations fluctuate. Advertising revenue migrated to Google and Facebook. The costs of actual journalism remain constant.

The math doesn't work.

Voice of San Diego's entire annual budget is less than what a single Union-Tribune executive earned pre-internet. Their newsroom of fewer than 10 journalists covers a county of 3.3 million people.

Andrew Keatts won Journalist of the Year for exposing multi-billion dollar fraud. His reward? Running a small web outlet trying to build sustainability in an industry where sustainability is nearly impossible.

The OB Rag and similar outlets operate on volunteer labor and passion. Dedicated individuals produce critical coverage because they care—not because they can afford to.

This isn't sustainable.

What Dies When Watchdog Journalism Dies

When Voice of San Diego or inewsource runs out of money, what happens to SANDAG accountability?

The Union-Tribune won't suddenly rediscover investigative journalism. KPBS will continue explanatory journalism describing what agencies say, not investigating truth. TV stations will cover crashes without examining systemic failures.

SANDAG will operate in darkness.

The next revenue fraud won't be exposed. Highway projects will be abandoned without outcry. People will keep dying on SR-67 while SANDAG builds trolley lines, and the connection will remain invisible.

That's the future without independent investigative journalism.

The Ironic Injustice

SANDAG's $125 billion budget dwarfs every independent outlet's combined resources.

The cost of fixing SR-67 ($476 million) is 476 times Voice of San Diego's annual budget.

The Purple Line's $11 billion could fund every independent newsroom in San Diego County for 200 years.

Yet SANDAG faces no requirement to fund media oversight. The Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee has a budget. SANDAG staff have generous salaries. Consultants bill millions.

But the journalists who actually hold the agency accountable survive on donations and hope.

The Washington Post Irony

The Washington Post proclaims "Democracy Dies in Darkness" while laying off the journalists who shine light.

The irony explains everything about how SANDAG's fraud succeeded.

News corporations buy local papers and gut staffs. Hedge funds prioritize profit over journalism. Legacy outlets proclaim their democratic mission while firing people who fulfill it.

The pattern is identical: Noble rhetoric masking institutional failure.

SANDAG says it serves regional mobility while building transit few will use and abandoning highways people die on.

The Washington Post says democracy dies in darkness while firing journalists who investigate.

The Union-Tribune could expose SANDAG but finds stenography more profitable.

Democracy doesn't die in darkness. It's being murdered in broad daylight by institutions that could save it but choose not to.

What Readers Can Do

If you value accountability journalism that exposed SANDAG's fraud, support it financially:

Voice of San Diego: voiceofsandiego.org/donate
inewsource: inewsource.org/donate
Times of San Diego: timesofsandiego.com/support
OB Rag and community outlets: Check websites for contribution options

These aren't paywalls—they're survival mechanisms. Quality journalism costs money. Someone has to pay. It can be readers who value accountability, or it can be no one—and accountability disappears.

The Stakes

Andrew Keatts' investigation cost Voice of San Diego perhaps $100,000 in staff time. Measure A would have authorized $18 billion based on false projections.

Return on investment: 180,000 to 1.

Can you think of any other $100,000 expenditure that protected taxpayers at that ratio?

Future investigations won't exist if journalists can't pay rent.

SANDAG's next fraud—and there will be one—will succeed if the only coverage comes from those who accept what the agency says.

Support the outlets doing the work. Because if they fail, democracy in San Diego fails with them.

Conclusion: A Crisis Written in Blood

The TransNet saga exposes California governance at its worst: the systematic erosion of democratic accountability when unelected planners and state mandates override explicit voter decisions.

San Diego County voters in 2004 approved a specific package of highway and transit projects. They were promised major highway expansions on I-5, I-8, I-15, I-805, SR-67, SR-76, SR-78, and other corridors. They were told TransNet would generate $14 billion to fund these improvements.

All three promises were broken:

Highway projects were abandoned (19 of 21 unfunded projects)
Revenue projections were false ($8.7 billion actual vs. $14 billion promised)
Funding was redirected to transit (58% of spending vs. 16.5% operations cap)

SANDAG officials knew the numbers didn't work, concealed the shortfalls, sought additional taxes based on false projections, and now justify broken promises by citing state climate laws passed after voters approved TransNet.

The result is a transportation system serving planners' ideological preferences rather than voters' democratic choices—and a public increasingly unwilling to approve new taxes for an agency that betrayed their trust.

But beyond the fiscal fraud and political betrayal lies a darker truth: SANDAG's broken promises are killing people.

Roberto Martinez Oros didn't have to die on SR-67 on July 18, 2025. Marcial Rivera and his son Emmanuel didn't have to die. The three others killed with them didn't have to die.

They died because SANDAG chose an $11 billion urban trolley line over a $476 million highway widening project that would have prevented the wrong-way collision that killed them.

Every head-on crash, every wildfire evacuation bottleneck, every family losing a loved one on SR-67 or SR-76 is a consequence of SANDAG's decision to prioritize transit ideology over highway safety improvements voters approved and paid for 21 years ago.

The blood on the road is real. The broken promises are documented. The causation is clear.

Until SANDAG faces real accountability—criminal prosecution for fiscal fraud, removal of officials who abandoned voter-approved projects, or state legislative intervention forcing compliance with ballot commitments—the carnage will continue.

And every death will be on their hands.

Verified Sources and Formal Citations

San Diego Association of Governments. TransNet Extension Ordinance and Expenditure Plan, Commission Ordinance 04-01. November 2, 2004. https://www.sandag.org/-/media/SANDAG/Documents/PDF/funding/funding-and-programming/regional-transportation-improvement-program/transnet-extension-ordinance.pdf
San Diego Association of Governments. 2025 Regional Plan. San Diego, CA: SANDAG, 2025. https://www.sandag.org/regional-plan
San Diego Association of Governments. TransNet Triennial Performance Audit – FY24. 2024. https://www.sandag.org/-/media/SANDAG/Documents/PDF/funding/transnet/oversight-reporting/transnet-triennial-performance-audit-report-final-fy-2024.pdf
Gotta, Jake. "Breaking down SANDAG's $125 billion spending plan." KPBS, 2025.
Lewis, Scott. "Let the Gravity of the SANDAG Fraud Truly Sink in." Voice of San Diego, February 25, 2019. https://voiceofsandiego.org/2019/02/25/let-the-gravity-of-the-sandag-fraud-truly-sink-in/
"20 Years of Impact: Voice's Investigation that Exposed and Reshaped an Agency." Voice of San Diego, May 1, 2025. https://voiceofsandiego.org/2025/05/01/20-years-of-impact-voices-investigation-that-exposed-and-reshaped-an-agency/
"Who died in the fatal crash on SR-67?" CBS8, July 23, 2025. https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/victim-identified-fiery-poway-crash-killed-five/
"Determining the Deadliest Freeway in San Diego County." NBC 7 San Diego, May 9, 2018.
Desmond, Jim. "The Voting System at SANDAG." https://www.supervisorjimdesmond.com/the_voting_system_at_sandag
"Nora Vargas elected SANDAG chair, board members walk out to protest 'weighted vote.'" KPBS, January 13, 2023.
Garrick, David. "San Diego moves forward with widening SR-56 to create carpool lanes, despite climate concerns." San Diego Union-Tribune, May 3, 2023.
DeMaio, Carl. "SANDAG Has Failed Both Drivers and Taxpayers." Reform California. https://www.reformcalifornia.org/news/sandag-has-failed-both-drivers-and-taxpayers-and-now-a-complete-overhaul-is-needed
"Poway Accident Statistics." Melinda J. Helbock, A.P.C., January 2026. https://www.helbocklaw.com/poway-accident-statistics/
"Four People Killed, a 5th Seriously Hurt in Collision on State Route 76." Times of San Diego, May 11, 2024.
California Legislative Analyst's Office. "SANDAG: An Assessment of Its Role in the San Diego Region." March 30, 2006. https://lao.ca.gov/2006/sandag/sandag_033006.htm
"SD-SPJ 2018 Journalist of the Year announced." San Diego Society of Professional Journalists, June 7, 2018. https://spjsandiego.org/2018/06/07/2018-journalist-of-the-year/
Keatts, Andrew. "SANDAG Board Members Call for Investigation Into Measure A Debacle." Voice of San Diego, February 21, 2017.
"Andrew Keatts to lead Times of San Diego as new editor, general manager." Times of San Diego, September 8, 2025.

Word Count: ~13,800 words

This investigation is based on original source documents including the TransNet Extension Ordinance, SANDAG Regional Plans, performance audits, California Highway Patrol collision data, court filings, and investigative journalism by Voice of San Diego, KPBS, NBC San Diego, CBS8, Times of San Diego, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

SIDEBAR: The Consultant-Industrial Complex — How SANDAG Burns Billions While Building Nothing

An army of engineering firms feeds off a 400-employee bureaucracy that manages studies for projects never built—while people die on roads promised 21 years ago

By [Staff Writer]

While San Diego County residents wait decades for voter-approved highway improvements, an army of consulting firms has made fortunes producing plans, studies, environmental reviews, and feasibility analyses for projects SANDAG has no intention of completing—all managed by a 400-person bureaucracy that exists primarily to coordinate consultants.

The pattern is consistent: Award massive "on-call" contracts to engineering consultants. Commission endless studies. Amend contracts to increase costs by 400-700%. Employ hundreds of "project managers" to oversee the consultants. Blame budget shortfalls for canceling actual construction. Repeat.

SANDAG's consultant spending reveals a perverse incentive structure: The agency and its contractor allies profit from planning projects, not building them. Studies generate billable hours. Construction requires accountability.

THE BUREAUCRACY: 400 Employees Managing Consultants Who Do the Work

SANDAG maintains a substantial bureaucracy of approximately 400 full-time employees with a $1.2 billion annual budget.

What do these 400 employees actually do? Mostly, they manage the consultants who do the actual work.

The Executive Layer: Soviet-Educated Ideologues and Career Bureaucrats

At the top sits the CEO/Executive Director position, currently held by Mario Orso (since June 2024), who came from 32 years at Caltrans.

His predecessor, Hasan Ikhrata (December 2018 - December 2023), provides the most revealing case study in bureaucratic overreach:

Education:

Bachelor's and Master's in Civil and Industrial Engineering from Zaporozhye University, former Soviet Union (now Ukraine)
Master's in Civil Engineering from UCLA
PhD Candidate in Urban Planning and Transportation from USC
Born in Jordan

Previous Experience:

Executive Director of SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments) 2008-2018
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
South Coast Air Quality Management District

Compensation: $414,149 annually plus potential 7% bonus

Management Style: Top-down, ideologically driven, dismissive of voter preferences

When Ikhrata announced in February 2019 that SANDAG would abandon 19 highway projects voters approved, he didn't apologize or express regret. He declared: "These projects, not only do we not have the money to do them – they're not the right projects for San Diego."

A bureaucrat educated in the Soviet system, where centralized planners decided what citizens needed, telling San Diego voters that their democratic decision was wrong. The arrogance is breathtaking.

Ikhrata pushed for a per-mile driving fee to force behavior change, championed the "5 Big Moves" transit-heavy agenda, and polarized the board so thoroughly that rural and suburban representatives revolted.

His compensation? Over $400,000 per year while telling taxpayers they couldn't have the highway safety improvements they voted for and paid for.

Before Ikhrata came Gary Gallegos (2001-2017), who resigned in disgrace after the revenue fraud scandal but presumably kept his pension intact. His compensation details aren't readily available, but as a 16-year executive at a major regional agency, his total compensation likely exceeded $300,000 annually in his final years.

The Director-Level Bureaucracy: The Real Power

Below the CEO sits a layer of directors managing SANDAG's various functions:

Lucinda Broussard - Director of Regional Transportation Services
Antoinette Meier - Senior Director of Regional Planning
David Cortez - Director of Engineering and Construction
Clint Peace - Director of Program/Project Management
Maria Rodriguez Molina - Director of Mega Projects, Border, and Goods Movement
Robyn Wapner - Director of Public Affairs
Dawn Vettese - Chief Financial Officer
Kimberly Trammel - Director of Accounting and Finance
Susan Huntington - Director of Financial Planning, Budgets, and Grants
Grace Mino - Acting Director of Business Information and Technology Services
Elaine Richardson - Director of Business and Workforce Compliance
Josh Golter - Director of Human Resources

That's at least 12 director-level positions, each presumably earning $150,000-250,000+ annually based on public sector compensation norms for agencies of SANDAG's size and budget.

Ray Major deserves special mention. He served as Deputy CEO and Chief Economist under Ikhrata until being fired by Mario Orso in July 2024. Major was responsible for the economic models and revenue projections—the very forecasts that proved fraudulent in the Measure A scandal. He survived that scandal, ascended to Deputy CEO, and was finally removed only when a new CEO took over.

How much was Major paid during his tenure overseeing fraudulent projections? Unknown, but deputy CEOs at similar agencies earn $250,000-350,000.

The Project Manager Army: Nearly Half the Staff

The 2022 audit revealed that nearly 200 of SANDAG's 400 employees—almost half the workforce—are actively listed as "project managers."

Think about that. Half the staff manages projects. But they don't actually build anything—they manage consultants who produce studies about projects.

What project managers do:

Coordinate with consultant teams
Review consultant deliverables
Attend meetings about consultant work
Approve consultant invoices
Request consultant cost proposals
Manage consultant task orders
Hire more consultants to review other consultants' work

What project managers don't do:

Design highways
Perform engineering calculations
Conduct environmental reviews
Build anything physical
Take responsibility for project completion

The audit found one project manager provided a vendor with "leading information" when requesting a cost proposal—essentially telling the consultant what to charge, eliminating negotiating power and creating "potential risk of employee and contractor collusion."

This isn't project management. It's consultant enablement.

The Support Bureaucracy: Duplicating Work Done by Consultants

Beyond project managers, SANDAG maintains substantial departments for functions that are then duplicated by consultants:

Human Resources (Director: Josh Golter): Despite having an in-house HR department, SANDAG awarded over 100 consultant contracts totaling $40 million for HR services that auditors found duplicated internal staff duties.

Legal Services: Similar pattern—in-house legal staff supplemented by millions in outside counsel for work auditors flagged as overlapping with staff capabilities.

Public Affairs (Director: Robyn Wapner): Manages communications, public outreach, media relations—producing glossy reports to defend broken promises.

Business Information and Technology Services: Manages SANDAG's IT systems and data analytics. The toll road debacle that cost $1.8 million in lost revenue fell under this department's oversight.

Business and Workforce Compliance (Director: Elaine Richardson): Ensures compliance with procurement rules and contracting policies—the very rules that audits found were routinely violated.

The Financial Bureaucracy: Three Directors Can't Track the Money

SANDAG has three separate director-level positions managing finances:

Chief Financial Officer (Dawn Vettese)
Director of Accounting and Finance (Kimberly Trammel)
Director of Financial Planning, Budgets, and Grants (Susan Huntington)

Yet despite three financial directors, the agency:

Used revenue projections it knew were false for Measure A
Cannot locate documentation for 170 contract transactions
Increased consultant contracts by 400-700% without adequate controls
Has "minimal, informal, and inconsistent" employee training on procurement
Failed to conduct performance evaluations on consultants
Lost $1.8 million in toll revenue due to system failures

What exactly are three financial directors doing if not preventing these failures?

The Payroll: Millions for People Who Don't Build Anything

Exact compensation data for most SANDAG employees isn't readily available, but we can make informed estimates based on comparable public agencies:

CEO/Executive Director: $414,149 (Ikhrata's confirmed salary)
Deputy CEO: ~$250,000-350,000 (estimated)
12+ Director-level positions: ~$150,000-250,000 each = $1.8M-3M annually
~200 project managers: ~$80,000-150,000 each = $16M-30M annually
~190 support staff: ~$60,000-120,000 each = $11M-23M annually

Rough total annual payroll: $30-60 million minimum (not including benefits, pensions, healthcare)

This is money paid to people who don't build highways, don't design transit, don't operate buses, and don't physically construct anything. They plan, coordinate, study, analyze, and manage consultants who do those things.

Meanwhile, SR-67 widening that would save lives costs $476 million—roughly 8-16 years of SANDAG's total payroll—and can't be funded.

THE CONSULTANTS: Half a Billion in Contracts to Study Projects Never Built

SANDAG currently maintains three categories of "on-call" consulting contracts:

Architecture & Engineering (A&E): Up to $300 million in contracting opportunities for "design consulting services for transportation infrastructure projects including transit system improvements, freeway and bridge enhancements, landscape design, freeway corridors, and other design efforts."

Construction Management (CM): Up to $150 million for "transportation projects that include heavy rail, light rail, bus rapid transit, freeways, highways, toll roads, local streets and roads, bikeways, and walkways."

Planning Services: Up to $40 million for "transportation planning projects including land use, active transportation, and transportation demand management planning efforts."

Total on-call authority: $490 million.

These aren't contracts for actual construction. They're contracts to plan construction, study construction, manage construction planning, and review studies about construction planning.

The consultants get paid regardless of whether anything gets built.

The On-Call Scam: How Contracts Balloon Beyond Recognition

The "on-call" contract structure creates a permanent consulting class with guaranteed access to SANDAG funds. Here's how it works:

SANDAG conducts bidding for pools of pre-approved consultants in various categories
Firms win "on-call" status through competitive process—so far, legitimate
SANDAG issues "task orders" to on-call firms for specific studies or projects
Task orders expand far beyond original scope with minimal oversight
Contracts balloon to 400-700% of original value through amendments
Board approval bypassed because amendments stay within "project budget"
Projects cancelled after millions spent on studies, leaving consultants paid and highways unbuilt

The Independent Performance Auditor's 2022-2023 investigations revealed the scale of abuse:

Top 10 vendors with highest percentage increases:

Originally awarded: $48 million
Final contracts: $106 million
Increase: 121% overall

Individual examples:

One environmental/engineering contractor (Blue Line trolley): Originally $25 million → Final $128 million (412% increase)
One "services" contractor: $20 million increase (over 400%)
Another on-call contractor: $9 million increase (nearly 700%)

Case Study: HNTB and the Toll Road Scandal

The relationship between SANDAG and HNTB Corporation—a major national engineering firm—exemplifies the consultant-bureaucrat alliance.

SANDAG hired HNTB to oversee another company's development of tolling software for the SR-125 South Bay toll road. The tolling system failed catastrophically, incorrectly charging thousands of drivers and costing SANDAG $1.8 million in lost revenue.

What did SANDAG do?

Kept paying HNTB millions to continue "overseeing" the failed system. Auditors found SANDAG "continued to extend HNTB's contracts and pay it millions of dollars, even though it was known the company's oversight of the tolling system was failing."

But HNTB's relationship with SANDAG extends far beyond the toll scandal:

Five on-call contracts examined since 2008:

Three for railway design and engineering
One for roadway system consulting
One for Del Mar Bluffs stabilization

Problems auditors found:

Contracts lacked clear spending limits and cost estimates (violating state guidance and SANDAG policy)
"Environment of potential favoritism and lax contracting practices"
Project delays with millions paid despite failure to meet deadlines
Missing documentation so extensive "it was difficult for auditors to fully assess how the agency went about hiring the company"

Example: Eastbrook-to-Shell double-track rail project

HNTB given 2018 deadline
No contract extension ever granted
Work not completed until 2022
HNTB paid throughout the four-year delay

As Imperial Beach City Councilmember Jack Fisher said at the audit committee meeting: "It's hard to take it. With such a large agency and so many talented people, how did we get here?"

The Conflict of Interest: Consultants Managing Consultants

Perhaps the most egregious abuse involves SANDAG hiring consultants to manage other consultants—creating financial incentives for delays and cost overruns.

The toll road case:

"Vendor AA" (likely HNTB) hired to oversee "Vendor EE"
Vendor EE supposed to complete work in 2019
Vendor EE "failed to perform" and got four-year extension to 2023
Vendor AA received eight cost increases because Vendor EE failed
SANDAG never conducted performance evaluations of either vendor

Auditors warned: Using consultants to perform project management creates a conflict of interest. Vendor AA has a financial incentive to allow delays and recommend extensions.

Translation: The consultant gets paid more when the project takes longer. Failure is profitable.

The Paperwork Black Hole: Missing Documentation

SANDAG's Independent Performance Auditor found staggering documentation failures that protect both bureaucrats and consultants:

170 transactions missing approval documents including:

Cost estimates
Records of negotiations
Project justifications
Board approvals

17 transactions dated retroactively to authorize changes after contracts already expired

44 task order changes exceeding $100,000 without specific board approval

SANDAG management "unwilling to provide direct access" to certain documents due to "confidentiality concerns"—hindering the audit

When auditors asked for contract documentation on HNTB, management initially claimed they couldn't locate key documents about two contracts. The documents were eventually provided—after the audit was finished.

As auditor Mary Khoshmashrab wrote: "Due to weaknesses in SANDAG's recordkeeping system, auditors could not make a determination of whether the company had been improperly favored."

Translation: The paper trail is so degraded that proving favoritism is impossible—which may be the point.

THE SYMBIOSIS: How Bureaucrats and Consultants Feed Each Other

The relationship between SANDAG's bureaucracy and its consultant army isn't adversarial—it's symbiotic. They need each other.

The Revolving Door

The pattern is predictable:

Work for engineering/planning consultant firm
Get hired by SANDAG as project manager or director
Award contracts to former employer or professional colleagues
Retire from SANDAG with pension
Return to consulting world with SANDAG connections
Win lucrative contracts from former SANDAG colleagues

This revolving door explains why:

Consultant contracts balloon without pushback
Documentation requirements are lax
Performance evaluations aren't conducted
The same firms appear repeatedly
"Favoritism" is impossible to prove but obvious to observe

Nobody wants to enforce strict contracting rules on consultants when they might be working for those same firms in five years.

The Bench Program: Institutionalizing the Insider Class

SANDAG created a formal "Bench Program" to ensure a permanent pool of certified consultants with priority access to contracts.

The Bench is described as expanding "opportunities available for small and disadvantaged businesses" and fostering "diversity." These are laudable goals.

But in practice, the Bench creates an insider class. Firms on the Bench get notified of opportunities first. Prime consultants are "encouraged" to use Bench firms as subconsultants. The same firms appear repeatedly across multiple contracts.

Diversity requirements—which should promote competition—instead become barriers to entry. Getting certified as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) or Small Business (SB) requires navigating bureaucratic processes. Once certified, firms have preferential access.

The result: A closed ecosystem where SANDAG staff, prime consultants, and DBE subconsultants all benefit from the current system. Actual construction would disrupt this comfortable arrangement.

Why Consultants Love "Studies" Instead of Construction

The incentive structure is obvious once you understand the economics:

For construction projects:

Fixed-price or competitive bidding
Performance bonds required
Completion deadlines enforced
Liquidated damages for delays
Quality inspections
Warranty periods
Risk of lawsuits for defects

For planning studies:

Time-and-materials billing
Scope changes increase fees
Delays justify more study
No objective performance metrics
Subjective quality assessments
No warranties on recommendations
Difficult to prove negligence

From a consultant's perspective, which would you prefer?

A $50 million highway construction project with fixed price, tight deadlines, and penalty clauses?

Or a $50 million "planning and environmental review" contract that can be amended, extended, expanded, and revised—all billable?

THE STUDIES SANDAG ACTUALLY PUBLISHES

Visit SANDAG's website and you'll find hundreds of published reports, studies, technical appendices, and planning documents. They're impressively detailed, professionally formatted, and utterly detached from reality.

Examples from the 2050 Regional Transportation Plan:

Technical Appendix 1: Financial Background and Assumptions
Technical Appendix 2: 2050 Regional Growth Forecast
Technical Appendix 3: Goals and Performance Measurement
Technical Appendix 4: Transportation Project Evaluation Criteria and Rankings
Technical Appendix 5: Project Cost Estimates (for projects that won't be built)
Technical Appendix 6: 2050 RTP and SCS Public Outreach Program
Technical Appendix 7: Urban Area Transit Strategy
Technical Appendix 8: Tribal Transportation Plans
(Continues through Appendix 15+)

Each appendix represents hundreds of consultant hours. Each was produced by firms billing $150-300 per hour or more.

The 2050 plan itself underwent "more than two years of planning, technical development, outreach, and public input" with a "comprehensive Public Involvement Plan."

SANDAG received "about 4,000 public comments from nearly 1,500 individuals and organizations." All had to be reviewed, catalogued, responded to—more consultant work.

Environmental Impact Report? 22 letters of comment requiring responses—Appendix G of the EIR.

Cost to produce all these studies and reports: Tens of millions of dollars.

Number of SR-67 deaths prevented: Zero.

The Study That Never Ends: SR-67 as Case Study

State Route 67—the highway where five people died in one crash in July 2025—provides the perfect example of consultant profits divorced from public benefit.

TransNet 2004 promise: $476 million to widen SR-67 from two to four lanes

Actual construction: Zero

Studies commissioned since 2004:

Environmental review (multiple phases)
Feasibility study
Evacuation route analysis (2020-2021 after wildfires)
Traffic pattern studies
Alternative analysis
Public outreach planning

Caltrans spent over $60 million on SR-67 "improvements"—shoulder widening, warning signs, maintenance. Everything except the four-lane widening with median barriers voters approved.

How much went to consultants for studies, environmental reviews, and planning? SANDAG's documentation is too poor to determine. But every study requires consultants. And consultants bill by the hour.

The result:

Voters paid $476 million (through TransNet taxes collected)
Consultants produced reports and studies
Engineers created detailed plans
Environmental reviews were completed
Project was cancelled
People keep dying

Everyone got paid except the people who expected a safe highway.

THE CULTURE OF UNACCOUNTABILITY

Large bureaucracies enable diffusion of responsibility. When you combine 400 SANDAG employees with hundreds of consultants, accountability vanishes entirely.

When Projects Fail, Who's Responsible?

When SR-67 widening gets cancelled, who's accountable?

The CEO says it's a board policy decision
The board says it's a staff recommendation based on budget
The CFO says revenue shortfalls are beyond their control
Project managers say they just coordinate consultant work
Directors say they manage process, not specific projects
Consultants say they provide analysis, not decisions

Everyone is involved. Nobody is responsible.

The Auditor They Can't Control—and Tried to Eliminate

The one position outside this bureaucracy's control is the Independent Performance Auditor, created after the Measure A fraud as a check on agency management.

Mary Khoshmashrab held this position from 2019 until her retirement in late 2023. Her audits exposed:

Improper severance and bonus payments (hundreds of thousands of dollars)
Consultant contracts ballooning by tens of millions
Missing documentation on hundreds of transactions
HR and legal consultant spending duplicating staff work
The toll road scandal ($1.8 million lost)
HNTB favoritism and lax contracting
Management "unwilling to provide direct access" to documents

The board's response? They discussed replacing Khoshmashrab with outside consultants instead of keeping the position in-house.

Think about that. The one person actually holding the bureaucracy accountable, and the board considered replacing her with—you guessed it—more consultants.

The board eventually decided to keep the position in-house and is currently recruiting Khoshmashrab's replacement. Whether the new auditor will have the same independence and tenacity remains to be seen.

The Federal Criminal Investigation That Went Nowhere

In 2023, federal investigators opened a probe into SANDAG's contracting practices. Details were never publicly disclosed, but the agency later acknowledged the investigation "apparently focused on contracting practices."

The result: Investigation closed in December 2024 with no charges filed.

Despite:

Contracts ballooning 400-700% beyond original amounts
Missing documentation on 170 transactions
Retroactive approvals on 17 contracts
$40 million in consultant work duplicating staff duties
Potential favoritism toward specific vendors
Financial incentives for consultants to delay projects
Evidence of "leading information" provided to vendors

No charges. No prosecutions. No accountability.

The consultants kept billing. SANDAG bureaucrats kept managing. Projects kept getting cancelled. People kept dying on highways promised in 2004.

THE UNANSWERED QUESTION: Where Did the Money Go?

TransNet was supposed to generate $14 billion. Only $8.7 billion materialized—a $5.3 billion shortfall.

But that's not entirely accurate. TransNet has collected billions in sales taxes since 2004. The money exists. It just didn't go to the projects voters approved.

Where did it go?

Some went to projects that were built:

Mid-Coast Trolley: $2+ billion
Portions of SR-125, SR-56, I-15
Various interchange improvements

Some went to transit operations subsidies: $6.9 billion allocated in current plan because fare revenues don't cover costs.

But hundreds of millions—perhaps billions—went to the bureaucrat-consultant complex:

Every cancelled highway project required:

Preliminary engineering
Environmental review
Cost estimating
Public outreach
Alternative analysis
Final design (sometimes)

All produced by consultants. All managed by SANDAG staff. All billable. All paid whether the project gets built or not.

Add SANDAG's annual payroll of $30-60 million over 21 years: $630 million - $1.26 billion just in staff salaries, not counting benefits and pensions.

Add consultant contracts of $490 million currently authorized, cycling every few years since 2004.

SANDAG's documentation is too poor to provide a comprehensive accounting. That may be intentional.

THE PERFECT CRIME: Legal Theft

What makes SANDAG's consultant spending particularly insidious is that it's not technically illegal.

The Brooks Act and California's Mini-Brooks Act require "qualifications-based selection" for engineering and architectural services—meaning agencies can't simply pick the lowest bidder. They must evaluate qualifications, then negotiate fees.

This sounds reasonable. You don't want bridge design awarded to the cheapest firm if they're incompetent.

But in practice, it creates a system where:

Consultants market "expertise" and "qualifications"
SANDAG evaluates based on subjective criteria
Fees are "negotiated" rather than competitively bid
Scope changes justify fee increases
Performance is difficult to measure objectively

The result is exactly what you'd expect: Costs increase, timelines extend, projects get cancelled, and consultants profit.

It's legal. It's documented. It's approved by procedures. And it's theft.

COMPARISON: What 400 Employees Could Actually Accomplish

For perspective on what 400 competent employees could accomplish:

Caltrans District 11 (San Diego/Imperial Counties) has approximately 1,800 employees and manages:

All state highway maintenance in the district
Major construction projects
Traffic operations
Bridge inspections
Environmental compliance
Right-of-way acquisition

With 4.5 times SANDAG's staff, Caltrans actually builds and maintains highways.

City of San Diego Engineering & Capital Projects Department manages hundreds of millions in infrastructure with a fraction of SANDAG's staffing.

San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) operates the entire trolley and bus system with approximately 1,500 employees—and that includes bus drivers, train operators, maintenance workers, and station staff.

SANDAG has 400 employees and doesn't operate anything. They don't drive buses, maintain tracks, inspect bridges, or pave roads. They plan, study, coordinate, and manage consultants.

THE RADICAL QUESTION: What If We Eliminated SANDAG?

Here's a thought experiment: What if San Diego County simply eliminated SANDAG and distributed its functions to existing agencies?

Transit operations: Already handled by MTS and NCTD
Highway construction: Already handled by Caltrans
Local streets: Already handled by cities and county
Regional planning: Could be done by County Planning Department
TransNet administration: Could be done by County Treasurer

Would service decline? Would projects stop getting built?

Projects aren't getting built now. Nineteen highway projects were cancelled despite voter approval and funding.

Service is already inadequate. Transit serves <3% of trips despite billions in subsidies.

Planning is already dysfunctional. The SR-56 corridor got dense development without transit. The Purple Line serves a north-south corridor in a region with east-west travel patterns.

Accountability is already absent. Fraud, waste, and favoritism continue regardless of audits, investigations, or public outcry.

What would be lost if SANDAG's 400 employees, $1.2 billion budget, and consultant army were eliminated?

400 bureaucrats managing consultants would need new jobs
Consulting firms would lose hundreds of millions in annual contracts
The revolving door between agencies and consultants would close
Studies and reports would decrease
Actual construction might not change at all

The most damning possibility: Nothing important would be lost.

THE HUMAN COST: Blood Money

When Roberto Martinez Oros died on SR-67 in July 2025—along with Marcial Rivera, Emmanuel Rivera, and two others—how much had bureaucrats and consultants been paid to study that highway over 21 years?

When Donna Okamoto died on SR-76 in March 2025, how many environmental reviews had been commissioned for the widening project that kept getting delayed?

Every fatal crash on voter-approved highway improvements represents:

Consultant fees collected for projects never completed
SANDAG salaries paid to coordinate those consultants
Studies produced, filed, and forgotten
Meetings held, documented, and ignored

The consultants got paid in money.
The bureaucrats got paid in money.
Voters paid in blood.

CONCLUSION: A Self-Perpetuating System

The consultant-bureaucrat complex surrounding SANDAG is self-perpetuating because everyone benefits except the public:

Consultants get billions in stable, long-term contracts with minimal accountability

SANDAG bureaucrats manage consultants rather than being accountable for actual construction

Board members get impressive-looking studies to show constituents while avoiding political risk

Prime contractors cycle the same DBE subconsultants through multiple projects, maintaining relationships

Nobody wants to build highways because construction is risky, expensive, and requires accountability

The system isn't broken. It works exactly as designed—for everyone except voters.

A 400-person bureaucracy exists primarily to manage consultants who produce studies for projects that never get built. The bureaucrats get six-figure salaries and pensions. The consultants get contracts that balloon to 400% of original value. Together, they produce:

Impressive reports nobody reads
Technical appendices justifying decisions already made
Environmental reviews for cancelled projects
Public outreach programs that ignore public input
Feasibility studies concluding projects aren't feasible
Cost estimates for work that won't be done

And while this $1+ billion annual enterprise churns out documents, people die on SR-67 waiting for the safety improvements that 400 bureaucrats and hundreds of consultants have spent 21 years not building.

Until boards demand accountability, auditors have enforcement power, prosecutors investigate fraud, and voters reject new taxes, the consultant-bureaucrat gravy train will continue.

Studies will be commissioned. Bureaucrats will manage. Consultants will bill millions. Projects will be cancelled. And people will keep dying on highways promised—and paid for—22 years ago.

The consulting class wins. The bureaucracy wins. Democracy loses. And San Diego bleeds.

Sources

San Diego Association of Governments. "Bench Programs." https://www.sandag.org/about/work-with-us/doing-business-with-SANDAG/bench-programs
San Diego Association of Governments. "Our Team." https://www.sandag.org/about/our-team
KPBS. "New SANDAG audit questions millions in contract spending." October 14, 2022. https://www.kpbs.org/news/local/2022/10/14/new-sandag-audit-questions-millions-in-contract-spending
KPBS. "Internal auditor says SANDAG leaders 'hindered' latest contracts review." May 9, 2023. https://www.kpbs.org/news/local/2023/05/09/internal-auditor-says-sandag-leaders-hindered-latest-contracts-review
inewsource. "New SANDAG audit prompts further investigation into contracts." May 8, 2023. https://inewsource.org/2023/05/08/sandag-contracts-audit-management-hindered-investigation/
inewsource. "What's up with all the SANDAG audits? We explain." May 11, 2023. https://inewsource.org/2023/05/11/sandag-internal-audits-management-responses-explained/
San Diego Union-Tribune. "Auditors probe consulting company at the heart of SANDAG's toll road scandal." October 9, 2025. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/10/09/how-did-we-get-here-auditors-probe-consulting-company-in-sandags-toll-road-failures/
Axios San Diego. "New SANDAG CEO Mario Orso fires Ray Major, chief economist and deputy CEO." July 30, 2024. https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2024/07/30/sandag-ceo-fires-deputy-ceo-chief-economist-ray-major
Axios San Diego. "Mario Orso takes over as CEO at embattled transportation agency SANDAG." April 26, 2024. https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2024/04/26/mario-orso-ceo-sandag
Times of San Diego. "SANDAG Recruits Top Los Angeles Planner as New Executive Director." September 23, 2018. https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2018/09/14/sandag-recruits-top-los-angeles-planner-as-new-executive-director/
METRANS. "Hasan Ikharta." https://www.metrans.org/hasan-ikharta
Bond Buyer. "SANDAG CEO Hasan Ikhrata to step down." July 31, 2023. https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/sandag-ceo-hasan-ikhrata-to-step-down

Word Count: ~6,500 words

This sidebar exposes the symbiotic relationship between SANDAG's 400-person bureaucracy and the consultant army that together consume billions while building nothing—all while people die on roads promised 21 years ago.