You’re familiar with the iconic red and white trolleys and buses you see around town, but how much do you know about the organization that runs them, the Metropolitan Transit System, or MTS?
MTS has been in the news lately due to questions over the way it lets riders pay for fares, complaints against some of its security personnel and an East Village bus yard it owns that’s needed to make the Chargers’ convadium project possible. But what about basic questions, like who runs it, and where it gets its money?
MTS is a government agency overseen by a 15-member board of directors. It has a massive annual budget that comes only partially from passenger fares. Its main job is to make sure trains, buses and trolleys get people to the places they need to go on time. The agency oversees about 88 million passenger trips a year, or 285,000 trips per weekday.
In this week’s San Diego Explained, VOSD’s Andrew Keatts and NBC 7 San Diego’s Monica Dean dive deep into MTS, its budget and operational structure.