Introducing the Copper Line - East County Connector

The Copper Line is a new East County Connector Trolley to serve stations between El Cajon Transit Center and Santee Town Center. It will serve each station every 15 minutes, most of the day. The Copper Line replaces the existing Green and Orange Line Trolley Service north of El Cajon Transit Center.
For more, visit www.sdmts.com/...

[@realquadmoo]

When I was very little I used to visit my grandma in Santee and I always begged to ride the trolley. Santee Town Center Station is nostalgic for me. My grandma has moved since then, but one day I'm going to come back down and just enjoy the trolley all day long like I used to.

[@1958zed]

Sounds like this will be a good thing overall, especially the increased frequency. I used to ride the Rapid 225 daily to work, and the 20-minute frequency during peak periods wasn't too bad. Now that I'm retired, though, the 30-minute frequency during the middle of the day makes me a bit less inclined to use it. Ditto for the 707 bus. I live within walking distance to a bus stop along the route, but the once an hour frequency makes it a non-starter for me. Increased frequency service will make it more appealing to folks and ridership would probably go up.

[@EDCOTruck]

Now this is a big W

[@repulser93]

...so that's what the construction and extra track at El Cajon was for when I passed it in May.

[@SanDiegoMTS]

Hi - Yes! We were building the third track for the Copper Line. Will you ride the Copper Line when it opens?

[@repulser93]

@@SanDiegoMTS When I'm in San Diego? Sure, I'll take a ride.

[@maxwellsmith9988]

not from san diego but i wish this project the best, it looks great

[@magesalmanac6424]

I love your profile pic 😊

[@bhuddy1832]

I wish I could agree, but it's a really poor solution, forcing more waits for forced transfers, which reduces ridership, largely because they've have spent so much money on other really costly extensions, while never fixing this segment to run proper services.

[@magesalmanac6424]

Yes yes yes, expand public transit!!!

[@msand3680]

are add second track on cuyamaca street

[@619KingPoker]

Night and weekends should be late nights some workers work swing and graveyard shifts

[@AM-qv5zf]

I don’t know if this is the place to ask, but could there ever be bus service from Ramona to i15 via highway 67?? 😭😭😭

[@IGtyi39AL78F56]

Will it expand to Alpine or another part of the County? Plus the airport or the beaches or Tijuana?

[@tbone3972]

Airport, Pacific Beach, & Ocean Beach is in the planning stage. I’m hoping that will be the extension beyond UTC.

[@loconegrito]

I have a bad feeling that it might be a trolley bottleneck at El Cajon station……

[@bhuddy1832]

Forcing additional transfers reduces ridership, too. Shorter wait times may offset some of that, but probably not 15-minute frequencies. But this seems like a pretty half assed answer to the problem of never having built this segment for proper service levels in the first place, and still not having fixed it after over 30 years, while spending so much money on the extremely costly the University line extension, much of it spent on some of those extremely expensive structures.

[@PDXLibertarian]

So, just double track it.

[@diderik146]

The single track part is in a median of a busy road for the most part, and a small bit in an alley closed in by buildings. Double tracking that would require the removal of one of the car lanes and maybe demolishing/moving some of those buildings. That is very expensive and time intensive. Maybe it is still planned for the longterm, but for now this short-term solution seems good

[@bhuddy1832]

@@diderik146 More expensive and intrusive than the gold-plated University extension was? The travel behavior data on transit demand and usage tells us that poor service levels, with long waits, from infrequent services, and wasted time from more forced transfers, results in less transit ridership, not more. Fixing these deficiencies has been a very low priority, while building new glitzy multibillion dollar projects like Uni seem to take priority.

[@Matthew-p2h]

Where in the world is this? There is no indication at all.

[@damiannavarro4386]

It literally shows where it is in most of the video. It’s in San Diego.

[@Matthew-p2h]

@@damiannavarro4386 Thanks for letting me know. I thought it might have been Mexico.

[@SanDiegoMTS]

@@Matthew-p2h Hi - the Copper Line will run between El Cajon and Santee, in San Diego's East County. Here's a shot of the map kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y5KpiKtqjLuNaacfeature=shared&t=23

[@NewYorkRecordingsNYC]

@@SanDiegoMTSI didn’t know you could like to a time! Thanks!

[@Hihoweryew]

You folks have to concentrate on the blue line. People are not using earphones and as a result there's three or four riders blasting their music. The conductor of the trolley has to get on the speaker and promulgate as much. PLEASE PUT YOUR EARPHONES ON!

[@gobbleguk]

more security against bluetooth speaker guys is necesary

[@sandiegopizzaeater7174]

MTS sucks. I work hard and pay my fare. Every single day, they let bums on the 215 for free at every stop. It's ridiculous.

[@bhuddy1832]

Transit should not be used as unsupervised free day care for the mentally ill, transients, bums, drug addicts, and criminals. LA has lost a half a million daily riders on their bus and rail system by turning their bus and rail system into an on-board homeless encampment and public urinal, by failing to provide proper security and public safety since 2015, (along with massive service cuts), and the management still is trying to blame it on Covid....

[@jayfielding1333]

This doesn't explain why a separate line was needed. How does this fix a single-track bottleneck?

[@jayfielding1333]

Oh, it doesn't. Why wasn't the section double tracked? This is so inconvenient for passengers.

[@jg-7780]

What it does is isolate that part of the line from the rest of the system. Instead of delays on the single track propagating to the rest of the system, they will only affect the 3 stops at the end of the line.

[@jayfielding1333]

@@jg-7780 Yes but it's now a four-station shuttle. Changing trains is inconvenient and a single-track section still has the same problem. Why they didn't double track and just keep the Green line is beyond me. If they had their hearts set on the Copper Line, why not extend?

[@bhuddy1832]

Let me get this right??? Let's force more transfers because we have had a poorly designed system on this segment we've never fixed, right? Improvement? LMAO... After spending the kind of money that was spent on the University line, they couldn't have done some "value engineering", saved a hundred million or so, and fixed this longstanding deficiency, instead of running half assed service with more forced transfers and calling it an "improvement"?

[@DJZMANENTERTAINMENT619]

They forgot to mention the orange line why can they make the green line and the Orange line like this make one green line go make one orange mango make one green line go one make one orange like a go. I bet they're probably going to have two green lines before the orange that's some BS.

[@scottydude456]

Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about the wonders of public transportation

[@DJZMANENTERTAINMENT619]

This is one of the dumbest most worst idea ever thought of why in the Sam hell would you have a Friday night go a few stops. MTS want people to have more wait time. It would take longer to get around SANTEE TO EL CAJON. I bet you wait for the chopper line you could be already there by now. And more chances of missing bus connections in that area I believe it is bad enough we miss bus connections because the trolley now of days. And why are they building a 3rd track which makes no sense. Why would they have the chopper line when they need a trolley go past Santee to a power way to Kearny Mesa Clermont eventually ending up at UTC Mall from that area. Hell hi I'd rather.takje the 833 bus to go to Santee. People need to speak out how bad idea this is

[@scottydude456]

Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about LeBron James

[@bhuddy1832]

It forces more transfers reducing ridership. We know this from the travel data. This is a half assed solution due to poor operational design and a failure (after over 30 years) to correct it.