OB Rag reporter Geoff Page has confirmed that Evergreen Street in the neighborhood of Roseville in Point Loma has been marked up for what appears to be single-lane striping.
Page described what he saw (see diagram):
Just out side the parked cars, on both sides of the street, are markings for what looks like the width of a bike lane. This leaves the center lane about 12 feet wide, if that.
It looks just like Gold Coast (in Mira Mesa).
This makes no sense. Why stripe out two bike lanes on a road like Evergreen? Just like Gold Coast, this is a residential neighborhood – why is all this striping needed for cyclists to ride on streets like this? It is costly, will require maintenance, and decreases safety.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
So per the O.B Rag bike lanes on major streets are wrong and so are bike lanes on quiet residential streets. It’s beginning to seem like the editors just don’t like any bike lanes that could inhibit their car driving or parking, hardly the progressive attitude I would expect.
JD, so you’re defending what the city did in Mira Mesa? Have you ever even been on Evergreen?
I have not been to the Mira Mesa striping yet but live off Locust and ride the neighborhood every day. The Rag has criticized the decision to place a bike lane on 30th and PL Blvd as they are major streets. Evergreen is a quieter street and it still not acceptable. Should we just lose lanes on Rosecrans? The core of this paper should be looking for solutions rather than just blasting the attempts. As an everyday bike commuter not all of what the city is doing is good but even the worst new bike lanes (5th ave?) are much safer than before.
Thanks JD – at least you have roots in the local community. And thanks for clarifying. But listen …
It’s government’s job to come up with solutions; it’s our job to hold government’s feet to the fire, to ‘keep them honest’ (a tough job these days), and to be a voice for the people’s complaints, issues, fears, and concerns.
In my opinion, there are only a few places where bike lanes might be needed. That would be when there are no other possible routes a bicycle could take and the only choice is a busy road. For those stretches, protected bike lanes are the only ones that make sense.
But, putting bike lanes on busy streets like 3oth and Park that have very acceptable parallel roads is not reasonable. Nor is it reasonable to spend money painting bike lanes on low volume streets like Evergreen with a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit. Cars and bikes can handle that.
Channel 8News has jumped on the issue as well, after reading the Rag. https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/shared-traffic-lanes-point-loma-bikes/509-6d57e77e-0d54-4516-8a63-9096748815ad
“People living around Evergreen Street in Point Loma say the road was freshly paved 2 weeks ago, and now they’re seeing chalk outlines that indicate the City may be installing a shared traffic lane there.” From Channel 8’s report.
I’m getting suspicious of these “paving” projects. Bike coalitions have been pushing restriping after any road treatment to include bike facilities because “it is cheaper” to do it while restriping anyway. Most of this “paving” is not paving it is slurry seal. That looks good and obliterates all previous striping. All anyone needs is to get a street on the slurry list to make it eligible for this new striping.
I’m hoping District 2 residents make their forcefully express their concerns about this restriping now, to Jen Campbell’s office and the Mayor’s staff. This could be a pivotal issue in the D2 campaign. The position Campbell and her challengers take will say a lot about who they’re listening to, and their wellness to push back against top-down governance at city hall, that ignores the concerns of so many residents. I have email addresses for staffers in Campbell’s and the mayor’s offices who are most directly involved in these issues, and will share them with anyone who needs them. Contacting staffers directly is much more effective than emailing the Councilmember and/or mayor.
Stealth government tactics and what government official put their name on the work order to do this? And who prompted/ordered/possibly coerced this person to make the decision to do this as an official policy (is it?) without public notification?
Why would a slow residential street need such a lane? It isn’t as if people are going to be riding alongside 40-50mph traffic on the larger thoroughfares. At 25mph commuters don’t need to jockey around one another. But a question that comes to mind is do bike riding commuters want to go down those streets due to being slower? Are they in a hurry?
I swear, San Diego City Government…new boss same as the old boss in an entrenched bureaucracy playing the same game with the same deck of cards. Funny how that is.
Article below is about the invention of the crime of ‘Jaywalking’ and how cars took over streets by design. A ‘crime’ invented by the car companies!
With a photo of Mulberry St. NYC in 1900 that shows modern bike riders wouldn’t have worked so well BEFORE cars. Streets were for pedestrians. Even skateboards wouldn’t have worked!
But life was slower then, the pace of a human walking or a wagon pulled by horses. Imagine the faster thing in the world being a steam locomotive….
The Invention of ‘Jaywalking’
In the 1920s, the public hated cars. So the auto industry fought back — with language.
https://marker.medium.com/the-invention-of-jaywalking-afd48f994c05
sealintheSelkirks
Lots of people use Locust and Evergreen to cut through to get to the base. They are in a hurry to get to work and drive very fast. This is a recipe for disaster! D2 did not know about this and the Mayor has this on hold until it can be reviewed more.
Seems like our community should be trying to mitigate commuters driving fast on our quiet residential streets. Not saying this striping is effective or safe in doing that but the status quo of infrastructure allowing that kind of behavior needs to go.
I, and most everyone else familiar with Navy commuting, would agree. The problem on that street is Navy base commuters. Much as I hate road bumps, some places really need them. Oh, and a little traffic enforcement might help as well but that seems to be absent everywhere. I live off Voltaire and it’s a speedway. I don’t recall anyone ever being stopped for speeding there.
Navy commuting has been a seriously unaddressed issue in the Peninsula. I’ve been listening to this problem at planning board meetings for 16 years. I was once told the Navy had shuttles for awhile that helped. but discontinued them for some unknown reason.
This bike lane striping will not solve this problem. Regardless, the community has a right to participate in these decisions.