The board is hoping to get its transit plan to the voters with a bond issue by November.

And the federal government saw the Comprehensive Planning Organization, and saw that it was good.

The creation of CPO followed the realization by local elected officials in the early 1960’s that the rapidly growing San Diego area needed an “association of governments” to provide regional cooperation and coordination in solving such area-wide problems as transportation, land use. air pollution, economic development and waste disposal.

Now. with the blessings and commandments of the federal and state governments, and with the efficient assistance of computer technology, the CPO is preparing a Comprehensive Land Use — Transportation Plan for the region, due to be completed in the next few months.

It will attempt to provide the form, to fill the void in local planning. But what is this "CPO” and what is its dominion over San Diego?

The CPO board of directors consists of an elected official from each of the fourteen member agencies Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Coronado, Del Mar. El Cajon, Escondido, Imperial Beach, La Mesa, National City. Oceanside, San Diego, San Marcos, Vista and San Diego County. Under the joint power agreement signed in September, 1972, each member government’s voting power and membership fees are proportional to its population. Of CPO’s $1.98 million operating budget for 1973-74, fifty percent is federally funded, 35 percent is state, and fifteen percent is provided by the membership.

CPO is a voluntary association and the County is playing hard-to-get. due to dissatisfaction with its relative voting strength. County Supervisor Dick Brown's CPO chair collected dust for several months until last fall when the County agreed to rejoin CPO while still attempting to attain voting strength equal to the City of San Diego.

Though none of the directors are compensated. CPO has a paid professional planning staff. Since mid-1971, the major project for the board, the planning staff and several ad hoc citizens' committees has been the creation of the Comprehensive Plan for 1995.

While CPO has neither legislative nor taxing power, it does exert authority in the following areas:

— CPO has been designated by the federal government as the official “metropolitan clearing house” for all federal and state financial programs within the County that may have a regional impact. Any jurisdiction in San Diego applying for government funds to finance such projects as water, sewer or transportation facilities must get CPO's review For example, for the city of San Diego to expand the Metropolitan Sewage System it must have CPO’s recommendation before it receives federal assistance. These federal A-95 guidelines were intended to avoid duplication of effort locally, and it is unlikely that any federal grant application by local government would be approved over the CPO's objection.

– CPO is recognized by the U S. Department of Transportation and the state Division of Highways as the primary transportation planning agency in San Diego. CPO has received planning funds from both these agencies to help implement the transportation planning elements of the Comprehensive Planning program. A bill is now in the state legislature which would give more legislative and financial support to CPO's plan.

– CPO is responsible for dispensing all funds collected from the gasoline sales tax earmarked for local transit improvement. CPO channeled over $5 million to San Diego Transit Corp. last year.

– The state has designated CPO as the Airport Land Use Commission in San Diego County, giving it advisory authority over development decisions on land adjacent to airports.

But the full extent of CPO's authority is still hazy and will be a much discussed issue among local governments when CPO completes its Comprehensive Plan.

The Plan's preparation has been a paragon of Western Rationality.

First, nine Regional Goals Committees. comprised of citizens appointed by the board of directors, drew up goals and objectives to be achieved by the plan. These goals were to eliminate or reduce regional problems in the categories of human resources, regional growth and economic development, the region’s physical development form, housing, transportation.governmental structure and services, environmental quality, open space and recreational services.

The goals are an egalitarian's delight. Among the over 300 goals and objectives are to “provide for the economic well-being of every individual and family in the region... to adopt a land ethic for the balanced coexistence of man. wildlife and vegetation in the region and for the protection of wildlife and vegetation for its own beauty" and to “provide opportunities for active citizen participation in all levels of government."

Next the planning staff began identifying various transport and land use policies that could help achieve these goals and objectives.

It is Thomas Paine’s "Common Sense" fed into a computer.

To permit comparisons among alternative land use policies, the various policy choices were combined into three groups — “Existing Trends," "Controlled Trends." and Radial Corridors" titles which refer to the land development pattern which would be created by adoption of each policy.

The alternative solutions were tested through CPO's Urban Development and Transportation Models, assuming a 1995 population of 2.4 million. Each was fed into the computer with its unique set of variables and the machine made such predictions as population densities and distributions, pollution levels and amounts of available open space.

Existing Trends, for example, tests what would happen if the region continues to rely on the private automobile as the primary means of transportation, and present land development policies are continued. When this alternative was fed into the computer CPO got a prediction of the pattern and density of urbanization, pollution levels, locations of employment and availability of public services.

Under Existing Trends, the computer predicted more urban sprawl with less than 25 per cent of new employment opportunities located in the newly developed areas. Downtown San Diego would attract less than one percent of new population, and although the number of buses will quadruple, bus ridership would increase only slightly.

The Radial Corridors alternative features a high speed, high volume transit system connecting all urbanized portions of San Diego. The track would run along the travel corridors of Interstate 5 and State 78 and would have an extensive feeder bus system.

Under Radial Corridors, the CPO computer predicts "new population would be mainly attracted to areas already urbanized, with highest residential and industrial density located near the transit stations. More people would be living and working in downtown San Diego due to its easy accessibility. There would be 18 percent less energy use under the radial corridors plan for all auto and transit operation, with a 20 percent reduction in air pollution.

In the Controlled Trends alternative. region-wide transit service would be provided by a “light rail" fixed guideway system in the metropolitan area with an expanded express bus network serving the area north of the city and connecting to the rail system. A more extensive local feeder bus network would be provided than in Radial Corridors.

The CPO computer forecasts Controlled Trends policies would guide new residential developments to urbanized areas with more filling in of the remaining vacant urban land.

Accessibility to employment opportunities would be greater under Controlled Trends than with the other alternatives. However, the demand for auto travel would be greater than that in Radial Corridors as w ill the use of energy. The CPO staff describes Controlled Trends as a way of "accommodating the use of the auto while trying to minimize some of its adverse side effects."

CPO Associate Regional Planner Rick Alexander said the board is hoping to get its transit plan to the voters with a bond issue by November. Alexander said the board is on an “accelerated decision schedule" so CPO can study the environmental impact of the chosen transit system, so the system will not suffer increased cost due to inflation so CPO can “beat other cities to the trough for federal funds."

The nature of that transit system, of course, depends on the chosen land use policies. The CPO board will be summarizing and comparing the alternative policies during its next few meetings, in hopes of choosing a set of policies by the end of February.

CPO staffer Walt Jaconski says the board will probably choose a combination of the three alternative systems since there are trade-off benefits in each set. For example, the board might choose land policies of Controlled Trends, but use expanded bus service outlines in Existing Trends. The policies will be evaluated in terms of their cost-effectiveness and ability to achieve the regional goals and objectives. Once a land-use transportation system is formulated. it will receive a thorough public review before revision into its final form.

CPO has little legal authority relative to the local governments in the region. Each city and theCoun-ty have control over land use decisions* within their boundaries. The city councils and the county board of supervisors will- have to decide if. how or when to alter their general plans to conform with the comprehensive plan.

But CPO already has some indirect authority to assure some conformance to the plan through its role as “metropolitan clearing house" — a role which could expand as the federal and state governments increasingly bestow their blessings on the idea of regional government.

Jim Cohen is a staff member of the San Diego Edition. Extra copies of this story or subscriptions to the Edition may be obtained by writing to P.O. Box 3634. San Diego. CA 92103.