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Getting Around: San Diego, CA

✔️

Essentials

Tap your phone or credit card, or use the Pronto app.
Transit app works great
Trolley tap readers are easy to miss
$2.50/ride. $6/day cap if you use the app.

✅

Pros

Clean, fast transit
Very convenient to Amtrak
Quick bus to airport
Lots of easy pay options

❌

Cons

Frequency could be better
Tap readers are scarce
Fare capping only in app

Traveled December 2025

Street scene, San Diego gaslamp district. Mid-rise buildings, sidewalk at left, then bike lane, then parking, then road.

San Diego at night. Sidewalk, hotel at right, valet parking at left.

Sidewalk in San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood. Cafes at right, sidewalk signs at left, road further left.

Train: Super Convenient!

I took Amtrak to San Diego. I got off the train, walked across the tracks, past a commuter train, and right there was the trolley (light rail) station. Super convenient! The trolley I needed arrived in three minutes. Hooray! I got right on.

I… walked right passed the tap card reader. I guess I was too excited about how close it was.

In my defense, as you can see in the picture, it was positioned away and to the side of the platform, which is odd.

San Diego train station. Coaster commuter train at left. “UC San Diego Blue Line to San Ysidro” tracks at right. Card reader in foreground. Highrise apartments in background. Night.

Amtrak and commuter trains on the left, light rail on the right.

Where to Tap?

Ahead of time, I saw that San Diego transit, like many modern cities, has tap-to-pay. Bus as I walked to the train, I didn’t see any readers.

Fine, I thought, the readers are probably on the train.

They were not. But guess who was!

😱Fare Inspectors!😰

In all my travels, this was actually my first encounter with fare inspectors for a tap-to-pay system, so I was kinda excited to see them.

They could see I was confused, when I asked where the readers were (in Portland, many are on board), and they let me jump off at the next stop to tap and get back on.

They even gave me a mini-tour of their mobile card reader. I needed to select the correct card in my digital wallet (my default payment card is different from my default transit card), and they showed me what a “NO” and a “YES” look like.

They were really chill and super helpful. But it was San Diego, after all.

The next day I had a look at a station, and there was only one tap reader, and it was at one far end of the platform. Really not a great configuration.

San Diego trolley in station. Pink trolley with writing on right. Fence at left, commuter train beyond fence. Highrises in background. Night.

Trolley pulling into the station. I had walked past the card reader, and there weren’t any more to be seen.

San Diego trolley station. Tracks at left. Tap card reader in foreground.

A card reader during the day. There may have been more, but this was the only one I found at this platform.

Fare Caps or No

San Diego has fare capping, where there’s a maximum you can pay for transit per day. But it only applies if you use their app, not if you tap a card or your phone wallet.

Kinda frustrating, but whatever.

The app, like many cities, has a bit of an involved setup. Security questions and all of that. Not terrible, but annoying.

San Diego trolley station, view from near platform, tracks in foreground, opposite platform in background with ticket machines and trash cans.

Light rail station near the Gaslamp district. Notice the trains get the whole street. No sharing space with cars.

Two security questions to set up the app. Why do we do this?

Bus

I rode several city buses. They were easy! And fast! And clean! And everywhere! And they came about every 10-15 minutes. Mostly on time! The tap readers were quick and responsive. It felt seamless, like a transit system should.

Onboard city bus, San Diego, facing forward. Card reader visible at front of bus, outdoor road and sidewalk with pedestrians beyond.

On board the bus. See the tap reader by the door.

Side-facing interior view of city bus at night. Reddish-brown upholstered seats opposite. Indistinct city scene outside.

Just hanging on the bus at night.

Sodewalk scene. Shops at right. “No Parking Bike Lane” and “No Right Turn” signs at left. Road beyond, with “HILLCREST” in red and green lights overhead.

Walking around Hillcrest, another bus. Buses buses everywhere!

Airport Buses

I also took the bus to the airport on my way out. San Diego’s airport is really close to downtown, which made it super easy to take the bus. One route or another departed about every ten minutes, and it was just a 15 minute ride from the Gaslamp District to Terminal 1. Easy Peasy!

Bus stop at San Diego Airport. “MTS Electric” #992 bus driving away at left.

This bus dropped me at the airport.

Commentary on Funding

It’s a real shame that San Diego’s transit seems to be on a fiscal cliff at the moment. It was really excellent, some of the best and easiest to ride I’ve experienced in the US. And it made it much easier for me to poke around, enjoy the city, and shop quite a bit more than I intended to. I would see places I wanted to go when I was on the bus, hop off, and pop in.

Road covered with light rail tracks. Pedestrian crossing. Angled sign with indistinct writing on it (author note: It says “No Cars”).

Light rail tracks, and a “No Cars” sign.

Large “MTS” sign with a listing of bus routes on sidewalk, near an intersection. Mid-rise buildings in background. San Diego.

Bus stop that took me to the airport.

If I’d been there with a car, I would almost definitely have just chosen one or two points of interest, driven over, then driven back. Instead I had a great afternoon popping around Hillcrest, and I’m really looking forward to making return trips.

San Diego is a city that I previously only knew as a tourist destination, and the walkability and good transit (and my pedestrian-first exploration) have changed my perception. It’s a proper, rather exciting, city in its own right.

And there were people out and about, which is the elusive part many cities struggle with, especially post-COVID.

Red cafeteria tray with a plate of two adobado tacos, another plate of two asada tacos, and a plastic bottle of grapefruit Jarritos soda. Tacos have onion and cilantro only.

Tacos. Open until 2pm. On a Monday.

Cardboard tray of Lumpia and dipping sauce in foreground. Plastic container with pork adobo over rice in background. Food sits atop a restaurant bar with a blurred picture of desserts in the background.

Beef Lumpia and Pork Adobo.

It feels like all the best parts of L.A. without all the mind-numbing traffic in between. (I know it has its burbs, but the sprawl seems less vast, less angry.) The food scene is top tier, and a lot of it is open late!😍 The biking infrastructure is rather good. Just good vibes all around!

San Diego trolley stopped at station in background, separated with a fence from the sidewalk at right. People out and about. Sign post with cameras and loudspeakers in foreground, and security camera and “Do Not Litter” warning signs attached.

Trolley at night, people out and about.

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