An overnight bus between the U.S.-Mexico border and downtown San Diego is so popular that local transit officials are making it permanent and planning new marketing efforts in Tijuana and on Spanish-language radio.

Local leaders are calling the border bus a great example of how transit can adjust to unconventional situations with innovative solutions.

Dubbed the “Overnight Express,” Route 910 covers essentially the same ground as the South Bay portion of the popular Blue Line trolley from 12:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. seven days a week.

The Blue Line can’t run during those hours, despite intense demand for overnight trolley service, because the tracks it uses are occupied by freight trains then.

That has left many early-morning workers and students who live near the border without a convenient and affordable way to get to downtown and other locations in the early morning.

Trying to solve that problem, Metropolitan Transit System officials began operating Route 910 as a pilot express bus last January.

While ridership took a few months to ramp up on the new route, Route 910 — which costs the normal MTS one-way fare of $2.50 — is now used by more than 7,000 passengers a month.

Perhaps more importantly, officials say it has reduced crowding on the first few Blue Line trains north from San Ysidro each morning.

“This is an example of creating something our customers need and actually want,” said San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who serves on the MTS board. “It’s a model for how we can grow and adapt.”

San Diego Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, another MTS board member, said the overnight express helps people avoid having to pay for a taxi or Uber or asking a family member to drive them in the wee hours.

“This is a tangible way to improve folks’ lives — and very hard-working folks,” Elo-Rivera said.

The MTS board voted unanimously Thursday to make Route 910 a permanent express route.

The decision will cost $800,000 per year, but it won’t create budget problems because the route is already built into budgets for fiscal 2026 and 2027. Its funding comes from SB 125 — state legislation that devotes many millions to mass transit across the state.

The decision to make Route 910 permanent was based on strong ridership numbers.

Ridership during the six-month period from July through December was 31% higher than it was in the route’s first six months. During those first six months, an average of 191 people per day used Route 910. During the second six months, that had risen to 251 people per day.

Brent Boyd, director of planning and scheduling for MTS, said he expects those numbers to keep going up as more people become aware of Route 910.

“I’d expect that the ridership keeps growing gradually,” he said. “We see no reason for it not to.”

Mark Olson, director of marketing and communications for MTS, said the route was promoted during two waves of outreach — one last January and one in the fall.

MTS is also planning to advertise Route 910 on billboards in Tijuana and on Spanish-language radio. “We think there’s a lot of growth opportunity for this route,” he said.

Route 910 has better numbers than other MTS express buses based on its number of riders relative to how much it costs to operate. Officials called that remarkable when you consider the unusual hours that Route 910 operates.

Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, another MTS board member, said the success of Route 910 shows that we live in a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week society.

Boyd said it was surprising to see that the most popular bus on Route 910 is the second-to-last one before the trolley begins operating — not the last one.

“I think it’s because the last trip is close enough to when the trolley begins that people might just wait,” he said.

Route 910 doesn’t stop at all Blue Line trolley stations. It stops at San Ysidro, Iris Avenue, Palomar Street, 24th Street, 12th and Imperial, City College and Santa Fe Depot, taking less than an hour to finish its route.

Boyd estimated that about 60% of passengers board at San Ysidro and that roughly half are headed to downtown and the other half are headed to other stops.

To make the route permanent, MTS had to analyze whether it has had any adverse impact on low-income residents or ethnic minorities. The analysis determined that it hasn’t.

The agency says the population of the area served by Route 910 is 38% low-income, compared with 24% in the overall MTS service area.

The Blue Line, which was extended from Old Town to La Jolla and University City in 2021, carries 80,000 passengers a day. MTS officials believe it’s the second-busiest light-rail line in the nation.

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – The issue and topic of homelessness and how to address it have been going on for years. It’s also been a talking point of Mayor Todd Gloria’s State of the City for years as well.

“This issue is urgent. It is complex, and it demands action. “And the results of our efforts are becoming clearer,” Gloria said on Thursday. “You can see it, and the data confirms it. Together we are expanding shelter, strengthening outreach, creating real pathways off the streets, and we’ve done it by insisting on a simple truth: a sidewalk is not a home.”

While some have gotten off the streets, many have set up their encampments along the highways of Downtown San Diego.

Gloria highlighted the pilot partnership that started last July with the State and City to clear homeless encampments off the highway.

“Since then, we’ve been able to remove over 320 encampments, which has resulted in over 200 tons of waste removed, and then with that, though we do offer services before, during, and even after if they want them,” Franklin Coopersmith of the City of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department said. “Of which, we’ve gotten 95 people into a city shelter or service option, and of those, we’ve actually gotten 8 people into a permanent housing option.”

Gloria said he’d like to expand the program moving forward.

“I want to do more because this agreement with CalTrans has proven so successful. I am urging state leaders to expand it and allow city crews to cover more areas next to freeways where we know tent encampments exist,” Gloria said

ABC 10News spoke with some local non-profits about how they view the homelessness crisis at the moment.

“I think there’s a lot of activity. I think there’s a desire on the City’s behalf to make progress around homelessness,” Drew Moser, Executive Director of Lucky Duck Foundation, said.

“That the crisis still remains, right? The fact remains that we have many unsheltered individuals on any given night on the streets,” Deacon Jim Vargas, President & CEO of Father Joe’s Villages, said.

Some had some questions about the progress.

“I think the mayor said that they had increased shelter capacity. Our question would be, where did that happen?”

The City’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department told ABC 10News it added two shelters in 2025 – one that has 43 beds (Safe Shelter for Transition-Age Youth (Safe STAY)) and another with 50 beds at the moment but can be increased to a capacity of 210 (Rachel’s Promise Shelter).

It also opened the H Barracks Safe Parking lot, and the Safe Sleeping site O Lot expansion of 235 more tents in late 2024 bled into early 2025.

“Those are, I mean, individual tents without heating or air conditioning or some of the many other benefits that exist at a bridge shelter or transitional housing,” Moser said.

“We also recognize that there are more seniors who are falling onto the streets, more behavioral health issues that we’re seeing on the mental health side and the detox side,” Vargas said.

Gloria did acknowledge the need for mental health and detox resources in his State of the City.

“We need more treatment capacity, more psychiatric care beds, more detox, and long-term recovery options. We need faster pathways from the street and into care,” Gloria said.

Thanks to Rep. Darrell Issa, violent crime is plummeting nationwide and California is receiving more than $233 million in rural health care funding.

At least that’s the view of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. The NRCC in recent weeks has put out a series of statements seemingly crediting the San Diego-area Republican with almost single-handedly forging such progress.

The reality is a bit different.

There’s no question Issa has supported anti-crime policies for the more than two decades he’s been in Congress, particularly during the two Trump administrations, and backed the recent plan for a $50 billion outlay for rural health services nationwide.

So did hundreds of other members of Congress, who similarly had no outsized role in these outcomes.

The rural health care release from the NRCC came just days before Issa, a Trump loyalist, voted against extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits, which passed the House despite opposition from GOP leadership and the president.

Odds are that during the campaign Issa’s vote will far overshadow his support for boosting rural health care — if his Democratic opponent has anything to say about it.

Perhaps more than anything, the NRCC actions signal the GOP is four-square behind Issa’s re-election in the 48th Congressional District, which had been a deeply red enclave that now leans Democratic thanks to the redistricting mania that swept through several states.

That’s not a surprise, given Issa’s San Diego-based district is considered a top battleground for partisan control of the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority.

Issa wasn’t committed to the new district at the outset. There was speculation he might jump to a nearby Republican district and, in a move that made national headlines, Issa openly considered running for a district in Texas. After a meeting with Trump, he decided to stay put.

Meanwhile, the NRCC has also sent out missives attempting to skewer the leading Democrats in the race — former Issa congressional opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar and San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert.

Big GOP money has yet to be spent, but that wouldn’t happen until months from now, with Issa expected to advance easily out of the June primary to the November election.

The NRCC moves would seem to put to rest any notion that Issa will drop out of the race before the election, something Campa-Najjar has continued to predict would happen as recently as a couple of weeks ago during a CNN interview.

The NRCC suggests Issa took a leading role in combating crime, but had some help. The big reductions last year coincided with Trump’s return to the White House.

“Thanks to Congressman Darrell Issa, violent crime is plummeting nationwide as Republican leadership restores law and order,” the committee said. “The country is on track for the largest single-year drop in murders ever recorded, with killings down nearly 20 percent from last year.”

The statement notes other violent crimes are dropping as well, “marking a clear break from years of Democrats’ soft-on-crime failures.”

The statistics are backed up with a link to an analysis by the Axios news organization, which nevertheless has a different perspective.

“The decline in killings is part of a broader decrease in violent crime following the COVID-era spike. Mass killings in the U.S. also fell in 2025, reaching their lowest level since 2006,” according to Axios.

“…President Trump has prioritized cracking down on violent crime in his second term, though there is no clear evidence linking his policies to the decline. Crime rates have been declining since 2021, according to data,” Axios added.

Except for the COVID era, crime in San Diego also has been on a downward trend for many years, making it one of the safest big cities in America. Under the NRCC logic, big credit would go to von Wilpert, who has been on the council for a handful of years and serves as chair of its public safety committee.

Interestingly, New York, Chicago, Memphis and Los Angeles County — all Democratic — experienced big double-digit reductions in murders compared with 2024, according to Axios. By comparison, predominantly Republican Johnston County, N.C., and Gilbert, Ariz., reported huge increases in the murder rate.

Not surprisingly, the NRCC release doesn’t mention that Trump’s Department of Justice slashed an estimated $500 million in federal funding for programs to help local and state justice initiatives, including policing, crime prevention, victim services and juvenile justice.

The increased health care funding will certainly be welcome in rural areas, many of which have distant and struggling medical services. That’s good regardless of politics, though much of rural America is Republican territory. Nevertheless, it might not benefit Issa as much as it would have in his current district.

The new 48th District expands north and west, losing much of its backcountry population in East County and adding Escondido, San Marcos and Vista. It also now includes heavily-Democratic Palm Springs in Riverside County.

“Congressman Darrell Issa continues to show that he is laser-focused on what matters to California families. Delivering quality, accessible healthcare is a critical win for California, and voters won’t forget it,” NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez says in the release.

Many may not forget his vote against the extension of ACA tax credits either.

“Once again, Rep. Darrell Issa has betrayed his constituents to protect Donald Trump and his party leadership, even as health care costs spiral out of control,” von Wilpert said in a statement.

Along with Medicaid cuts supported by Issa, von Wilpert cited congressional statistics projecting more than 32,000 of Issa’s constituents will lose health insurance. She said Issa has voted 17 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Campa-Najjar said in a statement that Issa failed “to protect the ACA tax credits that working families rely on to afford their health care.”

Issa and other Republicans have said the ACA needs reforms to drive down costs if it is to remain viable and suggested the program is riddled with fraud. Among other things, Issa has pursued legislation to lower prescription drug costs.

Republican House leaders unsuccessfully sought to avoid the latest ACA vote, knowing it would displease Trump and potentially hurt vulnerable Republicans like Issa. Seventeen other Republicans joined Democrats in voting to extend the tax credits. The bill is pending in the Senate.

Back in 2018, Issa represented a once-red district in North County that had eventually turned purple and a defeat seemed in the cards. He chose not to run after his loyalty to Trump and a pivotal vote he cast against the increasingly popular ACA supercharged Democrats in the district.

It seems at least some of that history is repeating itself.