Taking the Bus to the San Diego Airport
Having efficient public transit to and from the airport (in any city) is a great boon for travelers looking to save a few bucks and avoid driving or being driven. Despite this built-in demand, there is only one MTS bus, the 992, that services the San Diego Airport. This bus goes back and forth between downtown San Diego and the airport, and thus anyone trying to take the bus to the airport from north of downtown has to go well out of his or her way to do so.
I flew into San Diego on Monday morning and needed to get up to school quickly, but I was reluctant to pay the approximately $45 it takes to get to UCSD by cab. I also wanted to try and use public transit if at all possible. I came up with the following solution, which I think is the best compromise given the current transportation mix available at the airport. I hired a cab to take me to the Old Town Transit Center, which cost me $17 including tip. Then I caught the MTS 150 express up to campus, which is free for students. All told, I landed at approximately 9:20 AM, caught the cab at approximately 9:30 AM, caught the bus at 9:48 AM and arrived at school at approximately 10:05 AM (driving to the San Diego Airport takes about 25 minutes and taking the bus the whole way takes approximately 65-90 minutes, for comparison).
While this works pretty well coming from the airport, it does not work very well going to the airport because there is no taxi stand at the Old Town Transit Center. Ideally MTS would operate a bus on a loop between the Old Town Transit Center and the airport, Which would vastly simplify the project of getting to and from the airport. Cynically one might suppose that there is a strong disincentive for the airport to enable better public transit, given the revenue associated with airport-owned parking lots, fees garnered from private drivers and the like.
The other obvious option for somewhat mass airport transit is taking a shuttle bus (like SuperShuttle, with which I had some experience in LA), but they insist on arriving at the airport maddeningly early (around two hours before one’s flight), and take their sweet time doing it. For these reasons, I think they are even less palatable than an out-of-the-way bus route.