Transportation planners present wish list of projects

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 14, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

Transportation planners from San Diego, Imperial and Riverside Counties presented a long wish list of projects at a State hearing in Chula Vista today. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Now that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing a multi billion dollar infrastructure bond measure, agencies want to make sure Southern California's projects are included.

Scott Alevy of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, reminded the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation that Mexico is California's number one trading partner.

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Alvey: "We hope that you will start thinking of the border and California and Mexico as the front door to California, not the back door, our best partners are the Mexican economy and we'd like to have your help in making that happen."

A Truckers' Association rep told the committee a truck can take up to eighteen hours to drive from Tijuana to Los Angeles, with border crossing and traffic delays. Officials agreed a freight train line through San Diego is unlikely, but a rail line through Imperial County would reduce the 500 thousand trucks a year that cross the border there. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.