On April 14, 2016, the Port of San Diego unanimously voted to approve a new plan for National City Terminal – including the 2.5-acre expansion of Pepper Park.

The new plan resulted from unprecedented compromises between the City of National City, the Port of San Diego and community members. It was EHC’s policy advocate, Carolina Martinez, who opened the Port’s eyes to an inconvenient truth - the public amenities sought by the City for the bayfront were not what the residents of National City needed.

The City prizes hotels, restaurants, marinas and other tourist-serving commercial businesses that bring in revenue. While National City needs revenue, not many National City residents own boats, stay in hotels on their own waterfront or eat at pricey restaurants.

What residents do need is open, public park space where kids can play. A level, grassy area for pick-up softball and soccer games. Perhaps even a water feature – given that the bay itself and Sweetwater Channel are not safe or accessible for swimming.

Carolina and National City residents like Margarita Garcia, Leonor Garcia and Lorena Chavez impressed the Port with these realities. It responded by creating several options for redevelopment of the terminal that included more park space. Residents turned out to Port-led workshops in January of 2016 to advocate for the configurations that produced contiguous, usable park space. The new plan will provide 2.5 more acres for exactly these kinds of uses.

The decision to expand Pepper Park is a win for public participation, public health and environmental justice. EHC members from National City have fought for years for this greatly needed community improvement. This victory belongs to them.

A recent KPBS article reports that The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the organization responsible for planning the transportation in San Diego County, spent close to $1.5 million on a publicity strategy for the regional transportation plan.

The plan, passed last October, put freeways before people, ignoring recurring community requests for improved transit, biking and walking infrastructure before expanding freeways.

The article exposed SANDAG's developing media talking points to support the regional transportation plan; talking points that made the plan sound like a good option for our communities.

In reality, the plan is not a good option for our communities, and no media strategy or talking point covers this up.

Today, the truth remains the same: The regional transportation plan does not meet the community's needs, and it is not a good plan to improve the public health, safety and sustainability of the San Diego region.

Our communities will only improve when our government listens to the community and stands united with them.

Our communities don’t have millions of dollars to run a media campaign about the need for transportation justice.

Our communities have the truth. We have our stories. We have our heart. 

Do you know where we find our talking points?

We find it in Alma from Sherman Heights, who used to take public transit two hours in each direction to get to work every day and support her family.

It’s Brent from Barrio Logan, who tirelessly advocates for accessable sidewalks and safe crossing near Chicano Park.

It’s Boo Paw, a Karen Refugee living in City Heights. She and her daughter were struck by a car on a road near her home because of the lack of safe places to walk.

It’s the mother and father in Westside National City. They stay up late every night with their child who has asthma - which is triggered by the pollution from the neighboring freeway.

They, and many others, are our inspiration. They live our talking points. Their lives are our message, and that message is this: 

We must put the health and safety of our communities first.

This is one message that has never changed.

At EHC, we talk about transportation justice often. We know that how we move in our communities has an impact on our quality of life. But how are our communities spreading the word? How are we starting a movement?

Recently, 130 ninth-graders at e3Civic High School turned transportation justice into an outlet of creative expression.

EHC worked closely with the high school’s science, humanities and math teachers to provide students with necessary informational materials and mentorship. The students then took it upon themselves to discover what transportation justice means to them.

From their own research, students developed infographics to help easily explain transportation issues such as public health and infrastructure. Some even explored their home neighborhoods to take photographs of broken or nonexistent sidewalks, automobile congestion, transit opportunities, safe routes and more. These photographs eventually developed into beautiful stained glass images.

During the school’s “Winter Exhibition of Student Learning,” all 130 students stood alongside their projects and presented them to parents, teachers and community members. As more than 200 adults stopped to take in each piece of art, the students greeted them with information about the current transportation injustices happening in their own backyards.

“When you add lanes to freeways it doesn’t relieve traffic congestion in the long run,” said one student to a classmate’s parent. “It just adds more pollution in the neighborhoods.”

“Some neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks, so they are ten times more likely to get hit by a car than if they lived in a wealthier neighborhood,” explained another student. “This is a transportation justice issue.”

The students also shared their own transportation justice stories. Some could not afford to pay for transit while others felt unsafe crossing streets by their home. One student stood by her stained glass image of a broken sidewalk and told a story of how the poor conditions of the sidewalks and lack of ADA curb cutouts leave her grandmother unable to get around the neighborhood in her wheelchair.

When the students learned that SADAG had a survey requesting input on the type of transportation projects a potential ballot initiative should fund, they saw an opportunity to raise their voice. They placed a computer at the event for attendees to take the survey and urge SANDAG to support public transit, funding for transit passes for youth and say no to freeway expansion.

The majority of the students at e3 Civic High School live in San Diego’s urban core and grew up thinking that transportation justice issues were normal aspects of life. Now, these students know that they have the power – and the responsibility - to change the status quo. With knowledge and passion, San Diego now has 130 transportation justice ambassadors equipped to make a difference for years to come.

To learn more about transportation justice, click here. To get involved, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call (619) 474-0220 ext. 130.

Through the process of advocating for a Regional Transportation Plan that prioritizes affordable and accessible public transit, biking and walking, our communities grew stronger and more united. Doing much of this advocacy work in partnership with City Heights CDC and MAAC Project, we organized community support in unprecedented ways. We brought the concept of transportation justice to our neighbors, to community meetings, to City Council and SANDAG. We led bike rides to celebrate a future where pedestrians have safe places to ride bikes and walk. We taught each other the importance of having transportation alternatives to improve our quality of life and encouraged each other to get involved in the planning process and build healthy neighborhoods. 

We accomplished the following by raising our voices and spreading hope for the past two years. 

• A Transit Pilot Project on the 94 Freeway. $31 million will go toward a pilot project to assess the feasibility of using the existing median for public transit on the 94 Freeway. SANDAG stated that results of the demonstration project would be shared with the Federal Transit Administration for potential use nationwide.

• A Golden Hill/Sherman Heights Bus Stop. Golden Hill and Sherman Heights residents will get a much-needed bus stop, a $66-million investment, near the 94 Freeway and have better north-south transit access to communities from Otay Mesa to Escondido.

• 94 Freeway Environmental Impact Report (EIR). SANDAG had proposed two alternatives to add lanes to the 94 Freeway to increase car capacity, which would increase climate change and air pollution. We were able to successfully halt the process and incorporate two community-supported alternatives which put transit before freeways to be analyzed in an Environmental Impact Report.

• Purple Line Trolley. The purple trolley line, slated for the year 2035, will connect the communities of San Ysidro to Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and National City as well as become the first trolley line to go through City Heights and up to Kearney Mesa. This trolley line wasn’t included in the first Regional Transportation Plan, but our community members raised their voices about the necessity of a north-south bound trolley line through our neighborhoods. This new trolley line will require an investment of $5.471 Billion, making it a major victory for the community.

• City Heights Rapid Transit. $78 million will fund a rapid transit line through the City Heights neighborhood traveling up 54th street. Originally in the Regional Transportation Plan for 2050, our community members got it slated to be operating by 2025.

• Community Bike Ride. We hosted our first-ever community bike ride for City Heights residents to pedal in support of the new bike infrastructure planned for 54th, University Avenue and Orange Avenue. More than 100 people attended this community bike ride to celebrate, support and raise awareness for bicycle and pedestrian improvements that include bike lanes, sidewalks, crosswalks and more. The bike ride also gave our allies a platform to share stories and build new partnerships in the community in the interest of safe streets. Everyone had a great time. Residents who hadn’t ridden a bike in years decided to join and many loved it so much they made plans to begin biking regularly again.

• National City gets Safe Routes to School. The popular route to Kimball Elementary school underwent improvements to implement a community vision for a safe and healthy way for children to get to school. With the addition of stop signs, traffic-slowing infrastructure, bike lanes, bike racks, sidewalk maintenance and an improved student pick-up and drop-off area, getting to school is now safer and more enjoyable for nearly 400 students in our communities.

• Affordable Housing Near Transit. National City broke ground on 201 Paradise Creek affordable housing units. This development, nationally recognized for being transit-oriented and sustainable, is a perfect example of what can happen when residents come together and get involved in the planning of their communities.

• Community Involvement. With a common interest of making the region more accessible for everything, EHC and the Built Environment Team hosted a total of 19 community meetings. Residents gave public testimony at 12 total meetings, including SANDAG committee meetings and board meetings, City bike corridor and climate action plan meetings and neighborhood workshops. More than 600 community members signed EHC’s petition to protect the 94 freeway from expansion.

• One Regional, Unified Voice. Advocating for a Regional Transportation Plan that prioritized transit, biking and walking improvement before freeway expansion brought San Diego’s regional environmental community, social justice, community based organizations, transportation advocacy and labor organizations together for the first time to go on record in opposition to the regional plan. This was the first time all these organizations united over a common cause.

The fight continues for transportation justice. With your help and your commitment to #healthyhoods, we will continue to advocate for the transit, biking and walking improvements our communities need to have a safe and healthy place to live, work and play.