SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Regional planners are revisiting a proposed connection between San Diego International Airport and public transit through a new San Diego Metropolitan Transit System Trolley alignment. The renewed interest in a potential Trolley link comes after the region's planning agency, the San Diego Association of Governments, went back into the modeling process for the long-discussed project in February over discussions with federal transit regulators. These talks, SANDAG staff said at the time, made it clear the planning agency had to go back and collect new data on travel behavior reflecting post-COVID trends before heading into the environmental review process. Three San Diego County cities passed sales tax increases. Where is the $54 million going? This meant rethinking all alternatives, including a Trolley line extension and enhanced bus service, despite an earlier multi-year study concluding that an automated aerial people mover was the best and most "financially feasible" option on the table. During a meeting of the agency's Mobility Working Group on Thursday, staff said they were still looking at all of the options, but wanted to put more time into developing a Trolley concept that had not really been explored in that earlier study. "We know how to do light-rail service in this region, we don't necessarily know how to do [automated people mover] service, so we really wanted to make sure we were giving full analysis of that light-rail option," said Jennifer Williamson, SANDAG deputy director for planning. Map showing the proposed alignment for a MTS Trolley line to San Diego International Airport. (SANDAG) This new option, which would run from Santa Fe Depot and divert at Little Italy, would require extending the existing trench running up to Hawthorne Street down to Ash Street, addressing one of the primary issues raised with prior discussions of the Trolley connection — timing. Williamson explained to the Working Group that this new concept could bump up frequency from the previous estimate of 20 minutes to about 10, as the rail line would not have to run through intersections. The trench extension would also have added benefits for all of the other lines that run through this corridor of the MTS Trolley system, increasing reliability and reducing congestion for drivers. "When you're not stopping at all of those intersections and getting all of that delay from stopping at lights and gates and those things, you really do save some time and it allows us to optimize that time and use it better for frequency," Williamson said. This would similarly be able to more easily incorporate into existing transit infrastructure unlike the automated people mover, which needs to be completely separated as its electrically-charged lines would be unsafe to be placed at-grade. However, Williamson noted SANDAG engineers are still fleshing out the practicality of each of the options with the goal of starting to pare down the options to around five by the time they enter the environmental review process in fall of 2025. In the meantime, the agency will be conducting a widespread survey and outreach effort, including at least two public meetings next summer. “This outreach effort is really important, because before we took it back in February we hadn’t done an extensive public outreach," Williamson said. "A lot of people knew that they wanted Trolley to the airport — that’s kind of the way we hear it, it’s ‘Why doesn’t the Trolley connect to the airport?’ But we haven’t gone back and told them what it looks like." "As you’ve seen, this is a pretty comprehensive project that’s going to have a lot of impacts to a lot of folks. It’s going to bring benefits, but it’s also going to be hard to construct," she continued. Full rail closure scheduled between Oceanside and San Diego this weekend Whatever option the agency comes to, Williamson added the agency hopes to proceed with enhanced bus service to the airport in the interim, coinciding with the opening of the first phase of the airport's new Terminal 1 at the end of next year. If funding is available, she explained this could look like added service to along the MTS Flyer 992 route, or creation of transit-only lanes through Harbor Drive down the line. "If it takes us 10 years to construct these projects," Williamson said, "we really want to recognize the amazing new facility at the airport with all that additional capacity and so we want to provide a higher level of bus service to get folks there using transit."