City of San Diego Utilities Undergrounding Program

The City of San Diego (City) Transportation Department is implement!ng the Utllltles Undergroundlng Program (Project) to systematically convert overhead utility lines, including power distribution lines, telephone lines, cable lines, and other communications lines, to underground within City limits. It does not include electric transmission lines, which are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The City began undergrounding utility lines in 1970. More than 400 miles of overhead utilities have been converted to underground, with approximately 1,000 miles of overhead utility lines remaining. As a result, the Project is expected to continue for many years. The overall Project Is governed by the CPUC, Council Policy 600-08, and the San Diego Municipal Code, The City's Utilities Undergrounding Program Master Plan (Master Plan), developed in 2003 and last updated in 2018, guides future work of the Project. The Master Plan is the governing document for how the Project will execute Its future work. The Master Plan outlines the geographic boundary, estimated cost, and other parameters for future undergrounding projects to be Implemented under the Project. The goals of the master plan are to align with Council Policy 600-08 for the Project, Improve planning efficiency and accuracy, prioritize projects with the greatest public benefit, reduce neighborhood Impact, and simplify the public Interface with the Project. For the purposes of this PEIR, the term "district" defines the geographic boundary within which an undergrounding project would be constructed; as such, the site boundaries of a utility undergrounding "district" are the same as that of an "undergrounding project," The term "undergrounding project" constitutes an overhead alignment to be undergrounded/constructed. Each undergrounding project then consists of multiple individual "utillties" (I.e., specific pole and trench locations), Under the master plan, each undergrounding project was assigned a ranking Indicating when It would be undergrounded, along with a corresponding cost estimate, In 2009, the Master Plan was updated using geographic Information system software, which allowed for a more detailed analysis of projects and provided similar details to those In the 2003 master plan. The master plan was updated again In 2018 to provide new cost and schedule estimates and create a new methodology for communicating more realistic cost and schedule Information, This 2018 master plan takes unallocated projects from the 2009 master plan and divides them into smaller, more manageable projects. Due to the discontinuation of the CPUC Rule 20A program, the boundaries of Surcharge projects as currently delineated In the 2018 master plan will be revised to Incorporate, In part or In whole, adjacent former Rule 20A projects.