Last week, the City of San Diego announced that 14 roadways and intersections throughout San Diego have been labeled as “high-crash locations” and “will potentially receive safety enhancements.”
Locally, Midway Drive between Kemper Street and Duke Street: Near Sports Arena Blvd has been chosen as one of the dangerous places.
In a statement, the City declared:
The 14 areas were identified after the City of San Diego’s Traffic Engineering team reviewed 2024 collision data and evaluated intersections with five or more injuries or fatal crashes. The data also looks at patterns, street segments with the most injury crashes and intersections with the most pedestrian-involved collisions. …
Transportation crews have already begun working on safety improvements in some of the areas, including segments of Fairmount Ave., Main St., Mission Gorge Rd., and Imperial Ave. However, some enhancements must be completed through the City’s Capital Improvement Program and require additional funding.
The safety recommendations for these 14 locations include additional signs, flashing beacons, and crosswalks to improve drivers’ visibility of pedestrians entering the intersections. The recommendations also call for upgrading traffic signal lights, replacing or adding speed limit signs, and installing pedestrian countdown timers.
Some intersections may also receive additional red curbs to comply with the new Assembly Bill 413, the “Daylighting Law,” which prohibits parking within 20 feet of a marked or unmarked crosswalk. …
The City’s Transportation Department conducts a city-wide crash analysis each year as one of several tools to help determine policy decisions and safety investments. The results of each study are available on the City’s Vision Zero website.
The 13 other locations that have been “prioritized for further traffic engineering evaluation and potential safety enhancements” include the following:
- 15th Street at F Street: East Village, near Punch Bowl Social
- 8th Avenue at Broadway: Downtown/Gaslamp District
- Bayard Street at Grand Avenue: Pacific Beach
- 8th Avenue at University: San Diego, near Penn Station
- Kettner Boulevard at Sassafras Street: Near Middletown and Port of San Diego
- 10th Avenue at A Street: Downtown near San Diego High School
- Otay Center Drive at Siempre Viva Road: Otay Mesa, near US-Mexico Border
- Kettner Boulevard at Sassafras Street: Downtown, near San Diego International Airport
- Garnet Avenue at Mission Bay Drive: Cusp of Pacific and Mission Beach, near I-5 entrance
- Fairmount Avenue between Montezuma Road and Talmadge Canyon Row: College West
- Imperial Avenue between 53rd Street and Jacinto Drive: Chollas Creek and Valencia Park
- Main Street between the I-5 off-ramp and Woden Street: Near Naval Base San Diego
- Mission Gorge Road between Twain Avenue and Mission Gorge Place: Near Grantville
Midway doesn’t belong on this list. There is a traffic light and crosswalk at Duke and at Kemper, one block. There is a center concrete divider. The problem is that there are several fast food places and a major shopping center in that block. Add in all the homeless in the Midway area and you can see why there is a problem there. They don’t pay attention to the safety features already there, any more won’t help. Only a fence down the center divide of that block would do any good.
Agree with almost all of that. I think we could benefit from infrastructure that creates reduced speeds on Midway though, especially with Sports Arena running parallel for those who want to zip through. There are so many unsignalized entrances/exits on Midway it can create dangerous situations when people (myself included at times!) are driving fast.
Reducing speed limits is almost always a good idea. The problem then is enforcement with serious penalties.