San Diego’s largest public-transit investment, the trolley’s Blue Line extension up to University City, was set to open in 2021 – a year after the state’s biggest transit project, high-speed rail, was supposed to start zipping riders from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under three hours.

But the two projects ended up taking very different paths. Billions of dollars later, only San Diego’s extended trolley has opened its doors, while years of delays and ballooning costs continue to plague the California High-Speed Rail project – with no completion date in sight.

Now, experts believe San Diego’s ambitious Blue Line extension may hold the key to solving the state’s high-speed rail crisis, according to a new report by local transportation nonprofit Circulate San Diego.

While both projects

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