You need to quantify…

What was the increase in SDSU students applying for internships?

What was the gross economic benefit to the city of employing those students instead of hiring non-students during those students’ years of education? As part of this, you must answer what percentage of those students remained in San Diego after graduation to work and whether it is more economically beneficial to hire them instead of, say, a Fresno State (or any other) graduate.

What was the gross economic benefit to those students who gained additional experience during those internships?

What was the marginal cost of providing that light rail system (i.e. how much more did it cost than setting up an SDSU->downtown bus line)?

How much did that light rail line cost San Diego businesses and/or those students through the cost of higher initial taxes or bonds issues that needed to be paid off in the future.

——

Yes, I was quite flippant to you in my first response. But you’re making an economic argument that the light rail is a big economic boon for the city based on the fact that it connects the “masses” at SDSU to their internships.

You’re arguing as if San Diego is a city in the middle of Indiana that’s desperately trying to attract talented workers. Having gone to college in the middle of Indiana, I can tell you that plenty of Purdue (or Indiana State, or Ball State, etc) students will jump at the chance to move to San Diego for their career, and that San Diego will never be at a shortage of talent SIMPLY DUE TO THE CLIMATE.

San Diego, like most of California, instead has to worry that their own homegrown talent is undereducated or their businesses are overtaxed/overregulated to the point of wanting to leave the state. Adding massive public works projects need to be paid for, and it’s only going to exacerbate the situation.

Not quite. By making light rail available to SDSU, those students could schedule classes in between their internship hours. The light rail stops right at their campus and goes through the heart of downtown SD.

Without the light rail, a student’s options were to either drive, park and pay, carpool and split expenses, or take the bus. As mentioned earlier, parking is too expensive for an internship position, and the bus is too inefficient.

An increase in SDSU applicants to downtown internship positions increases the talent pool, which increases the chances selecting better managers.

Without light rail, there were fewer applicants to otherwise great opportunities, which meant smaller talent pool from which to select and promote.

PS: California’s too big for one governing body. Jefferson should do it!

It creates middle-management opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be available.

So you’re saying that without light rail, San Diego wouldn’t have any staff trained up through their internships to be able to handle middle management positions?

I’d say that the only jobs “created” by light rail are the construction jobs to build it, and the government jobs to keep it running. Knowing government, that probably is a lot of jobs…

UCSD students, those who will be SDSU’s managers and company PhD money makers, on the other hand, have little access to light rail. The bus system is atrocious, and driving is the only option. No relatively educated person is going to waste 1-3 hours of their day, every day, waiting for public transit. They’ll drive, pay the parking fee of $25/day, and deal with it. It’s worth every penny to their pocketbook.

Light rail is for the masses. It creates middle-management opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be available. You don’t go from pencil pushing to corporate buy-outs without the middle-management position. It’s more than an investment in convenience, it’s an investment in the city.

Hopefully those folks can simply walk away…

In addition to ignoring the opportunity cost, the proponents of this train ignore the fact that this thing wouldn’t benefit anyone outside of SF, LA, and Sacramento. Why should someone in Eureka or Weed or Truckee or Fresno pay taxes for a high-tech toy that the Angelinos get to play with?