SANDAG is Super Open and Transparent

From the in box:

"But exactly how transportation planning officials have decided which projects to spend billions on — and when, and why — has been shrouded in secrecy. Their justification is detailed in complex models, formulas and data that few understand."

"Local transit advocates have long sought to dig into them to understand how Sandag makes its decisions, but the agency has resisted their requests to release the information.
Advocates had to hire lawyers to get Sandag to release the models at all. The agency relented, but even then only on the condition that the advocates not share them with anyone else and only use them in certain ways."

"Last year, lawyers for local transit advocate Duncan McFetridge threatened to sue the agency, and it finally released the data. But the information was so indiscernible they had to hire a consultant to help them understand it. What they found troubled them. They believe Sandag's formulas make assumptions that allow the agency to justify highways over transit — reinforcing advocates' chief criticism."

"One of the assumptions they found is that poorer people are more likely to ride transit while wealthier people will not, even if the service is improved. Sandag's model predicts that higher income residents will take just 4 percent of work trips on transit while lower income residents take 37 percent. The advocates argue that assumption allows Sandag to justify highway expansions by saying some people will just never ride buses or trolleys no matter how convenient it is."


Read more at VoSD.


Solution: Don't change any practices or policies. Just make sure SANDAG is run by people we can trust, then it will be all good.