Councilmember Campbell’s Budget Recommendations Show a Slavish Kowtowing to Bicycle Advocates for Votes

By Geoff Page

After perusing Council member Jennifer Campbell’s September 10, 2022, Memorandum titled “Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Recommendations,” the not-so-shadowy hand of the cycling community becomes immediately apparent. One sentence in particular made this clear and caused a closer look at the memo.

“While flexible bollards are useful for demarcating space for bicyclists, they do not have any stopping power to prevent distracted, impaired, or malicious drivers from hitting bicyclists.”

“Malicious drivers?” Only the cycling advocates would say anything like that and Campbell included it in her budget memo. The closer review of Campbell’s budget memo revealed much more.

Public Safety

Under a section titled “Public Safety,” the memo contains one paragraph about SDPD recruitment, five paragraphs about lifeguards, a paragraph about emergency responses, and a paragraph about SDPD beach teams and foot patrols. In the middle of all that was this:

“Bike Registry and Anti-Theft Programs – Bicycle theft is an ongoing challenge for law enforcement throughout the city. Include funding for a bike registry to help track down stolen bicycles as well as continued funding for anti-bicycle theft programs.”

How does that qualify as a “Public Safety” concern and where does it rank in anyone’s mind, other than the cycling community, as a major budget concern?

Infrastructure & Sustainability

Another section of the memo is titled “Infrastructure & Sustainability.” One has to wonder why these two items were grouped together. There was quite a bit to this section but there was nothing about “sustainability.”

Under the subheading “Street Resurfacing” are paragraphs for Clairemont, Point Loma, Midway, and Old Town street improvements.

Each of the street improvement paragraphs, except Midway’s, begins with “Repaving is needed on the following streets with class IV bike lanes, improved pedestrian crossings, and ADA access.” The language is a bit confusing. This does not mean to say streets currently have “class IV bike lanes, improved pedestrian crossings, and ADA access,” it means that these things needed to be added.

The major section containing cycling agenda items is titled “Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety.” This section really illustrated the influence of the cycling community on Campbell. The section began with this:

The city should prioritize education programs to promote meeting the goals of the Climate Action and Vision Zero goals. Increased class IV pathways for bicycle and pedestrian use will help us meet those goals. In the areas mentioned below, there are clear pedestrian safety and access issues that need to be addressed to provide safe and convenient access for residents.

“Pedestrians” are thrown in each time but they are clearly not the focus.

The first item in this section is a request for “Construction Funding for the Liberty Station Bike Center (Building 191).”

The budget memo states that the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition currently holds a lease to Building 191 in Liberty Station that is owned by the city.  Campbell is requesting budget money so a Regional Bicycle Center can be developed there. The center would “provide a centralized space for bicycle education, rentals, events, and celebrations.”

Where to start with that one?

With everything this city needs, devoting any budget money to something like this, that screams for private funding, makes no sense. But, including this in her budget memo before the recent election, probably got Campbell a few more votes. Beyond that, putting something like this in Liberty Station is a lousy optic. It is hard to get any more Caucasian than Point Loma and Liberty Station in particular.

Just when it seems it cannot get any crazier, it does. Under another heading titled, “Install Physical Protection for All New Full-build Class IV Bikeways” is a discussion of Class IV bikeways. This has to be quoted completely:

Almost all recent bikeway projects in San Diego have used flexible bollards to separate bikeways from travel lanes. While flexible bollards are useful for demarcating space for bicyclists, they do not have any stopping power to prevent distracted, impaired, or malicious drivers from hitting bicyclists. All new full-build Class IV bikeways should use physical barriers for protection such as concrete medians and walls or jersey barriers to separate bikeways from traffic lanes. This item would require increasing the Transportation Department’s budget for each new Class IV bikeway.

This wording came directly – word for word – from the San Diego County Bike Coalition’s budget requests as seen on their website.

The completely unprofessional use of the wording “malicious drivers,” wording that could only have come from the cycling advocates, apparently slipped by Campbell’s reviewers. That kind of unsubstantiated judgement has absolutely no place in a budget document.

Having spent an entire career in the construction industry, this writer will note that this request is unrealistic for two reasons, cost and traffic flow. The concrete barriers are referred to as K-rails or jersey barriers. This type of concrete barrier can be precast or cast-in-place. There are big differences between the two.

Precast barriers can be lifted and placed with construction machinery. The barriers come in various lengths and have steel loops cast into each end. Barriers are joined by matching the ends and dropping a steel bar through the loops of each piece. There are ways to anchor the barriers to the pavement but these are not structurally significant.

Cast-in-place barriers have a footing and vertical steel reinforcement bar that ties the poured barrier securely to the ground. These barriers are the strongest and can take the impact of a car much better than precast barriers. Automobile impacts can damage and break the barriers but the base usually remains in place.

Precast barriers can also take impacts but they will move. The hoops and steel pin connection works well holding sections together but there is little to prevent lateral movement. An accident at the end of I-8 proved this. Precast barriers on the west side of Sunset Cliffs Blvd., protecting the skateboard park, were completely destroyed on impact.

Regardless of which type, precast or cast-in-place, is used, these barriers are expensive. Precast runs about $100 a foot and that is just material. It does not include the labor and equipment and traffic control costs for placing the barriers.

Precast barrier can have an added cost in that it can move when hit. It may be necessary to maintain it by realigning sections when there is movement and this requires labor and equipment. Cast-in-place barrier does not have this problem. The top can be broken in a serious accident but the work to repair it does not require a major effort.

Using some recent Caltrans information, 31,600/LF of cast-in-place barrier had a unit price of $140/LF.  Using a lesser quantity of 14,500/LF, the unit price goes up to $181/LF. The more barrier, the lower the per foot cost, but it is still very expensive. To request budget money for all new Class IV bikes lanes to have these barriers is unrealistic.

In addition to the cost, these kinds of barriers can have an effect on traffic flow. The full effect of having them in any locations would require an additional expense of traffic studies. A more reasonable request would be for such barriers only in places where cyclists must ride on a busy thoroughfare because there is no other choice, not for every Class IV bike lane.

In truth, Class IV bike lanes are not defined solely as having concrete barriers. The city’s own website defines them as follows:

Cycle tracks (Class IV), also referred to as protected bikeways, are exclusive bike facilities that combine the user experience of a separated path with the on-street infrastructure of a conventional bike lane. A cycle track is physically separated from motor traffic and distinct from the sidewalk. The separation maybe in the form of posts, parked cars or a combination of both.

The city’s description does not mention concrete. There is no argument that concrete barriers would be the safest option, but they are by far the most expensive as well.

The “Pedestrian & Bicycle” section contains much more about cycling, oh, and pedestrians too.

About the Balboa Station and Blue Line Trolley, the memo stated “providing a safe, direct route between surrounding communities and the Balboa Avenue Station for bicyclists and pedestrians must be the city’s top infrastructure priority in District Two.” This included a “pedestrian/bike bridge” over the I-5 freeway.

Some people would surely disagree that this should be the city’s top infrastructure project in District 2. A new lifeguard tower in OB for instance.  A pedestrian/bike bridge over the freeway is not a realistic budget request. But, it looks good.

The budget mentioned the Clairemont Drive Station and Blue Line Trolley stating that pedestrian and biking improvements were needed. Nothing specific was included.

The section that covered “Construction of Morena Blvd Class IV Bikeways” read like politics; the kind practiced by the cycling advocates. The reader can be the judge:

The Transportation Department is scheduled to construct bikeways on Morena Boulevard in conjunction with a pipeline replacement within the next several years. This is the most direct connection between neighborhoods South of Interstate 8 and the Pacific Beach, La Jolla, and University City communities, and as such, is an extremely popular route for cyclists despite the total lack of safe bicycle facilities. I urge the city to expedite this project as much as possible, as it has already been approved for Class IV cycle tracks within the Balboa Station Area Specific Plan and the Morena Corridor Specific Plan.

After all of that, Campbell’s only action was to “urge” the city to expedite the project. It was not clear why this was included in a budget memo.

There was a section about the intersection where westbound Sports Arena Blvd turns into West Point Loma Boulevard. The language in the memo was quoted and discussed in The Rag piece about the Midway planning group’s October meeting.

The cycling advocates wrote the memo language. A letter with this language was presented to both the Peninsula Community Planning Board and the Midway group. The goal was to obtain support for the letter. Apparently, the cycling advocates decided to bypass both groups, when they did not get their way immediately, and went directly to the council member who was up for re-election. It was included in Campbell’s budget request with no community support.

Another item was the Rose Creek Bike Path. The request is for “Installation of lighting along the bike path to promote safety. Funding should also be included to improve bicycle access and ADA accessibility. There is also an urgent need for a safe crossing on Mission Bay Blvd.”

There was also a request to “extend the bike trail from San Diego River West at Sefton Fields to Ocean Beach.” This was an odd request because there already is a bike path from the ballfield to OB.

Traffic Control

In this section of the budget memo were a number of places where the influence of the cycling advocates was evident. One was a request incorrectly titled “Pedestrian Bridge over Chatsworth Blvd at Plumosa Drive.” The request is not actually for a bridge.

The Peninsula Community Planning Board requested a “pedestrian crossing” across Chatsworth Boulevard “to increase safe access to Plumosa Park.”  The memo states that “High vehicle speeds make this road unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians.”  The memo further makes the unsubstantiated claim that this “crosswalk will calm traffic once completed. “Crosswalk” not “bridge.”

There is a request for a crosswalk at Balboa “on the east side of the intersection at Charger” to add improved access for walkers/bikes to the bus line. Pedestrians are now “walkers” in the memo.

In the end, it is easy to see how Campbell kowtowed completely to the cycling community. The question is why. Well, there was an election coming up and Campbell needed votes. The cycling community is close knit and well organized. There is no doubt the group can deliver votes because it consists of politically aware and active participants.

In effect, it can be said that Campbell paid for votes in her upcoming election with this ridiculous budget memo rife with cycling baubles. There should be a law.