Members of the Point Loma community of Roseville have a new concern.
New strips have just appeared on Evergreen Street between Canon Street and Nimitz Boulevard and locals fear that a similar street lane debacle caused in Mira Mesa is coming to their neighborhood.
No one in the community has been informed, notified or educated on this new type of street striping.
And neither has the Peninsula Community Planning Board been notified. Board member Korla Eaquinta is requesting that a presentation by the city on the striping be made at the Board before any permanent painting of strips is made.
In Mira Mesa, the city had to apologize for its actions. At a community meeting hosted by the local town council, representatives from the San Diego Department of Transportation offered an apology.
Recent changes to a Mira Mesa residential street came as a big surprise to neighbors who say they received no notice of the new lane configuration that included the addition of an “advisory bike lane” on Gold Coast Drive between Hemphill Drive and Royal Ann Avenue.
The changes in Mira Mesa have caused a lot of confusion for those driving through the area. Those living near Gold Coast Drive had been eager for answers and an explanation since last week when the two lane road suddenly switched to one shared lane with a bike lane on each side.
No one, not neighbors, not the Mira Mesa Town Council, and not even Councilmember Chris Cate who represents the district were notified by the city before the change went into effect.
The city says the advisory bike lane model is being used in other parts of the country and California, but this was the first time in San Diego. Signs went up along Gold Coast Drive as of Monday showing cars can dip into the bike lanes whenever they need to in order to pass oncoming traffic safely.
Hence the community meeting where Jorge Riveros, director of the San Diego Transportation Department, said this:
We want to offer our sincerest apologies on how this project was implemented and without any engagement or education with the community. Plain and simple, we messed up.
Even Mayor Gloria felt compelled to offer a type of apology.
“I have directed the transportation department to halt the deployment of this new type of bike treatment until we can appropriately convey what criteria are being used to site these advisory lanes and how residents can be engaged and educated on how to use them safely.”
So, despite all these apologies, is the city about to do the same thing on Evergreen?
Korla Eaquinta believes so. She emailed the District 2 offices of Jen Campbell with her concerns. She shared the email with the OB Rag:
I am emailing in regards to the new stripes that look like they will be painted on Evergreen St. between Nimitz Blvd. and Canon St. This type of striping has been on the news in other areas of the city and it has created a very dangerous situation.
The PCPB nor the community has been notified nor educated on this. I would request a presentation at The PCPB before this is painted.
I have never seen any type of traffic pattern like this and have no idea how to navigate the situation. I am a 30 year resident of Roseville and we get a LOT of military traffic through these side streets. They speed down Locust and Evergreen to avoid Rosecrans.
I believe this is a huge mistake and needs more review. I fear for the bike riders and for the vehicle traffic along this corridor. We also have a unique situation with Cabrillo Elementary School at the intersection of Evergreen and Canon which I also believe poses a risk to young students.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
I drove Evergreen today and what is marked out is confusing. There are parked cars all along the road. Just out side the parked cars, on both side s 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. 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.
I guess we can no longer advocate for street repairs and repaving without fear of it being secretly coupled with some cockamamie striping idea like this.
Likewise we can’t simply advocate for more transit options, because it can defacto upzone the entire area within 1/2 mile and remove all off-street parking requirements.
It’s like that time I took my car in to get the brakes done and they included a free lime green polka dot paint job by surprise.
While this ain’t very funny, I did have to laugh at that one, kh. Very apt analogy.
I’ve been scouring the city sites and haven’t found anything about this yet.
kh, you don’t have to worry about the addition of transit resulting in up-zoning. Two thirds of the residents in the city are already subject to the Transit Priority Area up-zone regulations, including most of Point Loma and OB.
Actually, I’ve been thinking about turning my van into an “art car.” I’ll put green polka dots on the short list.
There are 3 different types of Transit overlay zones, the one in OB currently is not subject to upzoning, or even parking reductions. But the developers and even DSD often fail to understand the difference.
I will accept what you say as accurate, but I have to say that I am a somewhat intelligent person who has a background in transportation and land use issues, and I have yet to find what communities are subject to the TPA designation, what the policies are that are applied to areas subject to the TPA designation and how land use regulations are relaxed in these areas. If you look at the city’s web site, there are multiple maps, and the themselves show the TPAs as blobs that obfuscate where the boundaries of the TPAs actually are located. I have to believe this is deliberate.
“Transit Area”
“Transit Priority Area”
“Parking Standards Transit Priority Area”
These are 3 distinct overlay zones with different maps. All of the OB planning area is located in the “Transit Priority Area” but not in the other 2.
Thanks for clearing (?) this up. It seems to me like they went out of their way to make things confusing – or maybe this is just what clear thinking looks like at city hall.
The city apologized only for not telling them about it in advance. Not for the striping itself.
Telling us what will be done is the city’s normal procedure for their public “input” process. Input is in quotes because their decision is typically already made before any such meeting takes place at a community planning group, which is the designated local forum for such planning decisions. But I guess even a token meeting was too much to ask in this case.
Apparently the city only recognizes the input of insiders on bike advocacy groups these days.
That, has to stop.
Thanks for this Frank. This is an accident waiting to happen. Following is the email response I received from D2.
While the intention of the edge lanes was to create a more accessible bikeway, the Transportation Dept. has acknowledged the poor rollout/outreach. We were also not given advanced notice about them. Here’s a statement from the Mayor, “I have directed the transportation department to halt the deployment of this new type of bike treatment until we can appropriately convey what criteria are being used to site these advisory lanes and how residents can be engaged and educated on how to use them safely.”
Additionally, our new community rep Linus ( lcsmith@sandiego.gov ) is onboard now for your general info. I’ve shared this issue with him but you should work with him to get a TD staff member to your group.
That’s hardly an apology or an admission of poor planning, just process. Sounds like they already have a list and intend to follow through, perhaps just at a slower pace. They should publish their internal list and quit playing games.
I put in a PRR yesterday to get that list, kh.
Thank you Neighbors for following up on this. I feel like it’s the City Council’s mission to ruin Single Family Neighborhoods as quickly as they can, with whatever deceptive means they have.
Thank goodness there’s a chance it won’t go in. Unfortunately, it took a total screwup by the city to put it on hold. Evergreen is 4 feet narrower than Gold Coast, blocks are really short, there are only a couple of stop signs, seniors drive the street and I don’t think the city has traffic levels, peak traffic levels and speeds. The worst thing for a bike is getting doored, but these lanes put the bike right up against parked car doors. Sharrows would seem like a better option.
Why is everyone so afraid of some stripes? This is the only logical parallel path to Rosecrans for bikes and the striping will just slow the traffic. The only danger I see is it may take a bit longer to drive this stretch.
It might be a wonderful idea. It might not. There might be some local nuance to it that has to be considered. Luckily we have transparent, community forums specifically to discuss the merits of such a proposal and make recommendations to the city. In this case it would be the Peninsula Community Planning Board. Or we can just keep leaving it up to bike advocates and city staffers to push it through in the darkness.
kh answered that very well in his comment.
Yes, it is one logical route to parallel Rosecrans, two others are also Willow and Locust.
It’s not that people are afraid of stripes, they just really resent not being involved in this decision, again.
If slowing traffic is the problem, there are three solutions. Traffic bumps, actual enforcement, and the Navy. These stripes will do nothing.
Willow and Locust both dead end at Canon. Evergreen has a crosswalk at both Canon and Nimitz, it is by far the best and only option. Traffic studies show visually narrowing the street with stripes does in fact slow traffic. Community involvement is great but if every decision involving the grater good has to go through the NIMBY board nothing will ever get done. I appreciate the discussion but this actually seems like a good idea and can’t see the downside.
Oh come on, JD, they dead end one block away, that makes them no good? There’s no way to make your way to the crosswalk at Evergreen?
The main downside is springing a change on the community with absolutely no community input. These tactics need to stop. Why do you think there is so much pushback to these ideas? It’s not the idea, it’s the attitude of the few that they know better what everyone else needs. That kind of thing has never gone over well throughout history.
A telling comment: “Community involvement is great but if every decision involving the grater [sic] good has to go through the NIMBY board nothing will ever get done.”