The geography of Encinitas tells a story. To the north, Batiquitos Lagoon. To the south, San Elijo Lagoon. To the east, the rugged canyon country of Escondido Creek — known to locals for generations as La Bajada. And to the west, the Pacific Ocean.

For most of its early history, Encinitas was not so much a connected community as an island caught between water and wilderness — more island than crossroads. The roads and bridges that transformed it into a connected, thriving city are among the most consequential public goods in local history. Their story unfolds in three distinct chapters.

Did you know?

Encinitas covers roughly 19 square miles. How many miles of publicly owned and maintained roadways does the City manage?

The answer is 169 miles — woven into every neighborhood, canyon, and corridor. That network exists because generations of residents and their elected representatives chose, again and again, to build and maintain it together.

THREE  ROADS,  THREE  ERAS

Long before Encinitas was a city, El Camino Real — “The Royal Road” — threaded through the area, following ancient Kumeyaay inland paths to connect the scattered ranchos and settlements of North County. Along the coast, another dirt road was at last paved and widened in the early 1900s, transforming a sleepy connection into a commercial corridor.  Hotels, garages and shops sprang up, and the town found its spine: Coast Highway 101, federally designated in 1926.  Forty years later Interstate 5 cut through the region.  Born from a 1956 Act of Congress and built with public funds, the freeway brought both excitement and conflict, dividing neighborhoods and galvanizing the communities that would incorporate as the City of Encinitas in 1986. Three roads, three eras, one through-line: El Camino Real connected settlements; Highway 101 connected economies; Interstate 5 connected regions — fast.

This timeline helps illustrate how roads—one of our most important public goods—developed over time.

HOW  ROADS  ARE  PAID  FOR

Roads deteriorate. They would degrade and become impassible if not assiduously maintained. How that maintenance is funded is more complex — and more collaborative — than most residents realize. In Encinitas today, road funding comes from multiple sources woven together through collective decision-making at every level of government. 42% of road funding comes from the state gas tax.

At the state level, 40% of the funding comes from the gas tax, 25% from federal funds, 15% from the local TransNet sales tax (itself approved by San Diego County voters), 12% from other state programs and 8% from cities’ general funds.

The gas tax, long the backbone of road finance, was designed in an era of exclusively gasoline-powered vehicles — which raises an urgent question for the road ahead.

THE  FUTURE  OF  ROAD  FUNDING

As electric vehicles become more common, road building and maintenance encounters a structural challenge. Electric vehicle (EV) drivers use the roads like everyone else — but they don’t buy gasoline, and therefore contribute little or nothing to the gas tax revenue that is the main source of financing road maintenance. Less gas tax revenue means less money for the roads everybody uses.

Several alternatives are under active consideration by state planners:

• mileage-based road usage fees,
• higher EV registration charges,
• tolls on specific corridors.

Each option involves tradeoffs, and each will ultimately be decided the same way road building and maintenance have always been decided — through collective choice, by voters and their elected representatives.

The debate is, in that sense, as old as the roads themselves.

Presented at MiraCosta College, March 24, 2026.

Video is available on the EHS YouTube channel here

ABOUT  THE  PRESENTERS