The OB Planning Board’s Transportation Committee wants residents’ input on two new, big ideas: a parking district for OB and a new link between OB and Interstate 8.
The Committee meets on Monday, July 22 at 6:30 pm at the OB Woman’s Club, located at 2160 Bacon Street.
We recommend anyone interested go to the OB Planning Board’s website and click on items for the meeting on 7/22/24.
Here is the official agenda for the Transportation committee meeting (for some reason the agenda asks people to submit “written public comments in advance of the meeting” to this unknown email address – tyler@tmartindevelopment.com] :
So let me get this straight,
The proposal is to extend the terminus of the westbound 8 freeway into Robb Field connecting with Bacon Street which requires demolishing the skate park, paving over a portion of Robb Field green space, routing freeway traffic into the Robb field recreational area, and into a residential area on Bacon street? And it looks like it would be an expensive project?
This is perhaps the worst project that the Ocean Beach Planning Board Project Review Committee could put on agenda.
Lots of questions here. OB can’t even get a new library or lifeguard station, but we’re expected to line up behind this plan?
There are only so many things our planning board can push across the desk of decision makers. This is such an outrageous waste of time and thought that I am shocked it is on agenda.
Frank, EXACTLY! WTH Anyone on the OB Transportation Committee or Board that is pushing this BS I say recall them!
To ask potential attendees to submit written comments in advance is bullpucky. WTF OBPB?
I think I am going to show up for the non-agenda public comment even though this is specific to the agenda item. Emailing a real estate developer with written public comment doesn’t seem like an effective use of time.
The committee is small; just 4 people. One of those is Tyler. I think it just happens he’s in real estate. If people write in and he doesn’t share the letters, then I would be concerned.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with inviting written public comment? The more the merrier. Some are unable to attend. The board has consistently done this for the past 5+ years.
Sending email comments to a developer?
That “developer” is an elected member of the planning board and volunteers additional time on this particular committee, and was voted as committee chair by the committee. If someone is not ok with his efforts then I suggest they put their name in the hat. I will say that while I don’t agree with him on some things, he is energetic, invites a robust discussion, and has been an asset to the planning board so far.
Okay, thanks for the clarification. I think the comments to the original post stand for themselves.
That “developer” got a seat because there were more open seats than candidates. I don’t call that “elected.”
He “volunteers additional time on this particular committee,” the Transportation subcommittee, which he created and got the board to approve. Is there more other than attending monthly board meetings?
He became subcommittee chair by default also. The former chair declined to continue and the other two members did not volunteer.
He has been on the board since April, barely four months. In what way has he been asset to the board already or are you referring to the Transportation subcommittee effort?
Geoff, Please note that the Transportation subcommittee has existed for several years. I don’t remember Tyler being involved in its creation, whenever that happened. It may even have been formed before I joined the OBPB.
Thank you Virginia, I was going by how the minutes were written in April, “AS:CP: 9:0:0 Move to form the Transportation Committee with: Andrea Schlageter, Tracy
Dezenzo, Tyler Martin, Virginia Wilson. I saw the word form but I now see the same word was used for the Project Review subcommittee, so it just meant “form” for this year.
I’m speaking based on my time with him so far on the Project Committee and full board. I have not been able to attend a Transportation committee meeting recently.
Yes, he ran for election to a volunteer position and was uncontested. Is that really a reflection on him, or rather the lack of interest from community members? I’ll say it again, if someone thinks they can do better, submit a candidate application. Also all the board seats are filled for the first time in years. So hopefully that bodes well for competition in the future. In the past we’ve had some members that did little more than warm a seat once a month.
The Rag has posted agendas for the various committees of the OBPB for years — and never saw a demand that any public comments be in writing and sent to a developer. Can you show me where “the Board has consistently done this for the past 5 years”?
The standing committee agendas since 2020 have an email listed at the top for written public comment, that goes directly to the committee chair.
The full board agendas do not use that language, maybe to keep it more compact, I don’t know, but they do still have the chair’s email at the bottom.
Here, dating back to 2020, with exception of Jan and Feb.
https://oceanbeachplanning.org/meetings/
I think organizations like this come up with new projects and ideas to avoid being held accountable for their failure to get earlier projects done. Also, in a larger sense, this strikes me as over development. Mention is made of adding additional bike lanes, charging stations, trolley-like services etc. Pretty soon an open and natural and quietly pleasant area gets crowded with stuff, claustrophobic, complicated and things get more expensive.
/s/ Chris Kennedy
What did the OB Planning Board fail at specifically?
Good grief!
Where did this committee land from and who is on it?
It seems to have run amok.
Demolish the beloved skate park and a hunk of Robb Field?
As a long-time PL/OB resident and avid bird watcher, I’m appalled at this potential project. Robb Field/San Diego River is one of the best places to bird watch in San Diego, and is used when San Diego Audubon has their yearly bird festival to showcase our winter birds in Feb/Mar, as well as birders from all over SoCal. If this “road” goes through, all that would go away as who would want to bird along there with traffic zooming right behind you when you’re trying to listen and look at birds? This project is one of the most stupid things I’ve heard of yet. And that area is also a nice save enclave for those skateboarders who frequent that corner of Robb Field. Too many other questions enter my mind right now. Ridiculous is all I can end with.
It wouldn’t take much to connect I-8 West to Bacon street with a right turn lane just after the Skate Board Park. The turn wouldn’t take fast traffic. The other direction would be trickier, but you could make a right from Bacon and a left at the I-8 East entrance ramp.
The city would have to at least repave the Bacon street parking lot roadway.
The biggest issue with increasing capacity is the bottleneck where I-8 East goes to 1 lane at I-5. It doesn’t make sense to add capacity into an already backed-up situation.
There’s already a bike and pedestrian connection along the river.
The rest of the suggestions are kind of Lunny Tunes.
Something is definitely needed there, I’m just not sure what. It doesn’t have to be a thoroughfare from I-8 to Bacon street. But imagine not having to funnel all the Robb field traffic through town.
I proposed changes to the city and Caltrans and was mostly ignored but for a few signs being added and converting the traffic signals to arrows to help inattentive drivers make the turn at night.
The community plan also calls for fixing southbound Nimitz to WPL. We asked about moving the bike path into the parkway and adding a dedicated turn lane. City claims because it’s park space they can’t put a bike path there. WTF? It’s not a park, it’s a fucking dead weed farm with dead trees!
I’ve wondered why that change never happened. Putting the bike lane on that wide expanse of unused sand makes perfect sense and WPL needs a right turn lane. This might bear another look.
Park and Rec also said they can’t do solar lighting at the childrens park because it just doesn’t work, and the panels will get stolen. Who knew solar lighting is a cutting-edge untested technology.
I agree, we shouldn’t be so easily silenced by their laziness. We need more bodies. I’m exhausted.
I’m not sure the Robb Field plan is the right one, but the entrance to OB at the end of the 8 definitely needs to be redesigned. Most of those roads were originally laid back in the 60s when the 8 was first built, it’s a spaghetti mess now and has an LOS (level of surface) of E/F. It’s not 1965 anymore, and the roads should be updated to current population needs. The onramp to the 8 East is definitely an area of concern, it’s almost always backed up to WPL or Voltaire, and the area off the 8 West where the Nimitz/SSC split could use work too.
The only way to “speed up” that intersection would be to build a spaghetti pile of underpasses/overpasses. Traffic would flow effortlessly from Sunset Cliffs and Nimitz to Sea World Drive and I-8 eastbound, while the west-bound I-8 would flow effortlessly over the north and east bound traffic to Nimitz and Sunset Cliffs. The hang up would be the West Point Loma intersections at Nimitz and Sunset Cliffs with their stoplights.
Frank, I think you’d concur, the OB Rag predicted these problems 50 years ago when the big push began to destroy the single family residences and replace them with massive apartment complexes. And from my experience with roundabouts, if the I-8 traffic poured into OB during the evening rush hour, or on weekends with the beach crowds, the backups at Bacon and West Point Loma will be as bad as the West Point Loma and Nimitz/Sunset Cliffs intersections.
Let’s see: 2024 minus 50 is 1974 — about the time you worked on the Rag, Tom, and you’re right. I liked that image – “spaghetti pile of underpasses/ overpasses.” Actually, I think you worked on it in ’71 – ’72, eh?
I appreciate everyone’s comments! Committees are where all ideas are discussed, refined, or thrown out. I would encourage anyone with interest in this topic to attend the meeting. A robust public discussion is important to putting the best ideas forward to improve quality of life in OB.
Let’s start with building the Library with a community room where meetings can be held in person and zoom with nearby parking.
Water the trees, clean the streets, maintain City Owned buildings and other assets, slow down traffic on residential streets. We can deal with the traffic it’s been like this for years. It’s a small town and try and keep it that way.
The board has advocated for updates to the Rec Center and Library for years. The Libary expansion and community room are partially funded and currently in design phase. Last year the board did an extensive effort to identify needed upgrades and deferred maintenance issues in all of our local parks. The city has so far not been cooperative on that front.
We need more voices to pester the city on these issues.
The chair of the OB Planning Board just emailed me and urged all commenters go to tonight’s meeting and express their thoughts.
For all the controversy, the turn-out for the meeting was dismal (or maybe OBCeans just voted with their feet – and didn’t attend “intentionally”).
worst idea ever. Yes, there is a bottleneck at the terminus of I8 west.. but there’s got to be a better way than dumping all that traffic into a relatively non-commercial area with narrow streets and well used recreational facilities.
I read this article as something positive. Bringing better mass-transit and making areas safer for pedestrians work towards climate and coastal accessibility goals. I have long dreamed of a trolley reconnection to OB as improbable as this may be. Riding a bike near the 8 on Nimitz is frightful as an able bodied 42 year-old man as vehicles attempt to rush towards highway speeds. Missing pressing the walk signal by seconds at W. Point Loma and Nimitz punishes the greenest travelers with a lengthy wait for the light cycle while breathing in the noxious fumes of dead dinosaurs.
Bacon was a bigger traffic corridor when it had the bridge to Mission Beach pre-pier, but rerouting there for the 8 is drastic. The skatepark is also heavily utilized as well as the athletic fields. There are some problems with this proposal but writing it off as exclusively real estate graft is a lazy cover for nimby-ism. Maybe we can get a transit connection to Mission Beach? Maybe we can better accommodate summer throngs of visitors with a park and ride to Newport? Art. Not all change is bad and it will never be 1965 again.
I do worry about follow through though. See the pedestrian OB entrance(?) from Robb Field to W. Point Loma and Sunset Cliffs for wasted efforts and human misery. It is dead end with a dangerous rocky slope. Also, both fields have some of the saddest playgrounds in San Diego. The playground at Dusty Rhodes was mostly taken down and never replaced. Both fields are regularly used by homeless people and contain their accompanying debris and vibes. There are no perfect solutions, but I appreciate some people are making efforts to improve our community.
Those slip lanes along Nimitz can certainly be a death trap for those who aren’t familiar with them.
Has there been any talk of Circuit/FRED coming to OB? It’s extremely popular in PB, and has helped with parking issues close to the beach. The company would need a place to charge the vehicles (maybe 6?) nightly.
Thanks Frank J. I was unaware of FRED even though it appears well-established. One thing not mentioned in their website is whether a rider can carry “stuff”. Most people going to the beach are bringing a fair amount of stuff, including boogie- and surf-boards. I personnaly avoid the beach at certain times due to parking difficulty, and FRED could potentially help with that if they could work out the stuff and sand issues.
If you were going to do something (and I repeat IF), there’s a much simpler solution, albeit one that comes with its own set of undesirable outcomes.
Take the westbound traffic from I-8 to the Sunset Cliffs/W. Point Loma intersection and prohibit through traffic onto Sunset Cliffs. All traffic would be directed to turn either left or right onto W. Point Loma, right turning traffic would then be directed onto Cable street, where a good sized fraction of the current traffic goes today.
Of course, directing most OB inbound traffic onto Cable Street would have horrific impacts on the residents on Cable, but at least it would avoid impacts to Robb Field and the skate park. Possibly spillover effects on Ebers Street as well, although that carries a lot of traffic under current conditions.
I guess if you were going to do this, then the obvious additional change would be to turn Sunset Cliffs and Cable into one-way couplets, but this would have even greater impacts on quality of life, but traffic might ( and I repeat might) flow better. Cable and Sunset Cliffs would turn into mini-expressways, but you could have two lanes of traffic on both streets while retaining parking (I still fear that the City is going to eliminate parking and put in bike lanes, which, of course, also has impacts on the surrounding residents).
It comes down to deciding if you want better traffic flow or safer, more enjoyable quality of life. I vote for preserving the park and the neighborhood.
Having worked for Caltrans and having some familiarity with the FHWA’s highway design manual, I look around San Diego and just have a total feeling of bewilderment with how our highways connect to city streets, including the terminus of I-8. Bad design with little regard for the neighborhoods (and not just Barrio Logan, Little Italy, etc.) abound here.
I was unaware of this proposal until today and I’m gobsmacked! I see numerous problems/issues, not the least of which is parts of the proposal that would take out large chunks of Robb Field no matter how an extended Bacon St. might be laid out.
There’s no mention until the final page that Robb Field is part of Mission Bay Park. Unfortunately, a city council in 1953 conned voters into approving the construction of public roads through parks. It was buried in a lengthy amendment to Section 55 of the City Charter addressing multiple topics. “Whenever the City Manager recommends it, and the City Council finds that the public interest demands it, the City Council may, without a vote of the people, authorize the opening and maintenance of streets and highways over, through and across City fee-owned land which has heretofore or hereafter been formally dedicated in perpetuity
by ordinance or statute for park, recreation and cemetery purposes.”
I can foresee a “Jackson Drive” opposition movement to taking shape if there’s a serious proposal to take any part of Robb Field for a through road, or for a Transit Center & Parking which would also take away land from Robb Field.
BTW, on p. 1, it’s Dusty Rhoads Park, not “Roads”.
There are multiple references to “traffic calming measures” at specific intersections. I read that as roundabouts (traffic circles). I’m not averse to roundabouts in the right locations – they can be very effective as seen on La Jolla Blvd which used to be a 3×3-lane raceway. They’re pretty small; ones along the 2-lane Sunset Cliffs Blvd. would probably have to be even smaller and I haven’t experienced the same racing traffic on Sunset Cliffs. I’ve never had a problem entering Sunset Cliffs Blvd. from the cross streets just, sometimes, a lengthy wait or I choose a street with a traffic light.
However, I think a roundabout at Sunset Cliffs & W. Point Loma would be very helpful to reduce the backup of traffic between Sunset Cliffs and Nimitz.
I’ll add a comment about the roundabout at Bacon & Sunset Cliffs which is an accident waiting to happen if it hasn’t already. The very low concrete surround is invisible until one is almost on it, especially at night, and especially on a rainy night. I haven’t been down there for several months so don’t know if anything has been added to the center to at least announce that there’s something in the center of the road.
Judy, while reading your comment I reminded myself that if any federal funds of any type were involved, there would have to be a Section 4(f) determination to use any part of Robb Field park lands. This is a very high hurdle that I don’t think could be overcome.