San Diego's High-Tech Dashboard

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Those of us who follow transportation agencies like Sound Transit and WSDOT during the past few years have seen a remarkable enhancement in their financial transparency and efficiency with the public's dollars. In San Diego, state and regional agencies are taking that accountability one step further, making it real-time.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and Caltrans have launched the innovative, interactive TransNet Dashboard, an online reporting tool intended to provide the public with up-to-date information on transportation projects underway in the San Diego region that are funded by the TransNet half-cent sales tax. The state-of-the-art site is a Web-based connection to current schedule, budget, and expenditure information for highly anticipated projects underway on the I-5, I-15, I-805, SR 52, SR 76, and Mid-Coast corridors. The backbone of the site is programming that merges construction, finance, and schedule data from SANDAG and Caltrans databases for easier access.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community’s largest transportation planning effort.