For all its massive failures, at least Boston’s “Big Dig” — a public works mega-project that took 16 years to complete — eliminated 23,400 vehicle-hours from Interstate 93 each day. SANDAG’s potential Big Dig boondoggle offers no such dramatic benefit to San Diego County commuters. San Diego County residents have been led to believe that the track atop the Del Mar bluff is imminently destined to fall into the sea. That is demonstrably false. In fact, SANDAG is currently finishing a project that stabilizes the bluffs for the next 30 years at a cost of $88 million. This false narrative aims to swindle taxpayers out of as much as $5 billion, not to prevent a terrible accident, but to enact a costly vision for the expansion of transit ridership. Few leaders — if any — have asked the most obvious question: Why would we spend $5 billion when we have already paid for an $88 million repair that will last the next 30 years? Phase 5’s current construction is easily the most cost-effective way to deal with this problem. If SANDAG has billions of dollars to spend, then it should use its resources to solve more pressing transit issues for North County residents that they have long promised to fix, like improving the state Route 78/Interstate 5 interchange. Citizens should evaluate the motives of those on SANDAG who have declared that reinforcing the bluffs for 30 years is a “short-term solution.” Their true motivation for pushing SANDAG’s Big Dig is an ideological dream to create an East Coast-style transit system in San Diego County. Unfortunately, the idea we can build a rail system as efficient as East Coast cities is size-prohibitive. San Diego County was developed in the age of the automobile and cars are a necessity in a county where the city of Vista (only one of its 18 cities) is roughly the same size as Manhattan. According to SANDAG’s 2019 “State of the Commute” report, just 346 of every 1 million vehicle miles traveled by commuters in San Diego were aboard a bus or train. The other 999,654 commuter miles were traveled by automobile. The true motive of those who advocate for a tunnel is to create “a double track.” This double track would allow northbound and southbound trains to pass one another, increasing frequency and ridership. However, even if we doubled the number of commuter miles traveled by rail, we would still make only an imperceptible dent in removing vehicular traffic from our roads. I am deeply concerned that a tunnel or a realignment of the tracks is not in the best interest of taxpayers, who overwhelmingly depend on their automobiles. Voters countywide have paid a half-cent TransNet sales tax since 1988. SANDAG has broken its promises to taxpayers for 38 years, including eliminating the stop light at I-5 and state Route 78, adding express lanes to state Route 78 and creating a functional interchange between state Route 78 and I-15. North County voters have been cheated by SANDAG for far too long. In addition to broken promises, we have seen grossly overpaid executives who bilked taxpayers out of tens of thousands of dollars in lavish expenses, and approved hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts that did not comply with state law as reported by SANDAG’s independent auditor. SANDAG’s board majority has repeatedly demonstrated that it is not a friend to motorists or taxpayers. While the board has given up its 5 cent per-mile Road User Charge for the moment, it would be folly to think that the current majority would not like to see this policy implemented. Members simply decided that this idea was ahead of its time. Taxpayers should be very worried that this horrible idea will rear its ugly head again. Before we spend billions of dollars digging tunnels or realigning tracks, we should first consider the taxpayers’ interests. Those billions destined for SANDAG’s Big Dig would be better invested into functional improvements in our highway infrastructure. Those improvements would remove thousands of vehicle-hours from our roads, saving motorists gas money and reducing greenhouse gases emissions. San Diego leaders should be focused on moving motorists safer and faster, improving our environment and our daily lives. Franklin is mayor of Vista and served as a member of the North County Transit District’s Board of Directors from January 2019 to December 2020.