On Friday, the San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, will vote on San Diego Forward, its long-term plan for $204 billion worth of mass transit and construction projects. That’s a lot of money and new infrastructure going toward the next 35 years of the region’s transportation needs.
Transit is something a lot of people care about, so what exactly is SANDAG and who’s behind it?
On this week’s San Diego Explained, NBC’s Monica Dean and Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis tell us to think of SANDAG, which has representatives from 19 municipal governments on its governing board, as the “United Nations of San Diego governments.” SANDAG doesn’t just do transportation planning — it’s actually a hub of research on everything from crime to demographics.