2 Recent Reports on San Diego’s Bicycle Network Find Dangerous and Clogged Lanes, Key Gaps and Inadequate School Routes

Two recent reports out on San Diego’s bicycle network find troubling problems with the hundreds of miles of bike lanes, from difficult and dangerous corridors, gaps in the infrastructure and insufficient bike routes for school kids.

One report from San Diego State University — the “State of the Ride”– published in May, ” identifies corridors for improvement and highlights how biking could feel safer for more communities, as UT writer Maura Fox reported August 5. She wrote that “San Diego’s expansive bicycle network remains difficult and sometimes dangerous for cyclists to navigate and contains key gaps that prevent continuous riding.”

The report was done in conjunction with the group BikeSD, whose executive director quipped:

“It’s not the question of, how many miles did we build? It’s more like, can an average child or a 70-year-old woman actually ride there?”

The report highlighted these issues, looking at what it says is the nearly 700 miles of bike facilities :

• Only about 75% of the 2013 bike master plan’s goal for bike infrastructure has been implemented;
• The most common type of facility — which accounts for nearly 60% of the mileage — are class II bike lanes, which are designated specifically for cyclists.
• bike infrastructure is not distributed evenly across the city.
• Dense, urban areas in and around downtown have a higher concentration of bike facilities compared to more suburban areas in the northern and eastern parts of the city. Those areas are more reliant on bike lanes along major arterial roadways.
• Just over 80% of major streets and roads have some bike infrastructure — but only 8% of that is protected, and most corridors have disconnected segments.
• While 63% of the network is considered low-stress, over 30% of the network is considered high-stress.

Fox writes that “the report also pointed to the need for more low-stress biking options, such as designated bikeways or multi-use paths dedicated to cyclists and pedestrians — types of infrastructure where riders face less traffic stress.

And the study’s authors wrote:

“While a majority of the network is technically bikeable, a substantial portion consists of high stress segments that may discourage use, particularly among the ‘interested but concerned’ population.”

The other report is from a county watchdog panel that was published in June that criticized gaps in the city’s unfinished network, a lack of bike lanes in low-income areas, that the city has only one street sweeper capable of cleaning the city’s 59 miles of protected cycle tracks. The report by a county grand jury also urges the city to encourage more bicycle commuting by public school students.

UT reporter David Garrick wrote:

The lack of school children commuting by bike is a key concern raised by the report, which estimated that 10% to 14% of traffic on local streets is parents dropping off and picking up children at school. Based on a survey the grand jury conducted, only one in 20 schools in the San Diego Unified School District have an active “safe routes to school” program that encourages students to bike to campus.

The report also dissed the county’s regional planning agency, the San Diego Association of Governments, for their regional cycling maps contain errors and lack important detail.

Other details from the report:

• there are too many gaps in the network and many situations where bike lanes end without adequate warning to cyclists.
• the city has 1,900 miles of bike lanes compared to 6,600 miles of lanes for vehicles. (Where does the difference come from: 700 miles vs. 1900 miles?)
• only 260 of those 1,900 miles are either grade-separated bike paths or cycle tracks – which run parallel to roads with cars but are separated by barriers like bollards or raised curbs.
• other lanes include 1,224 miles of painted bike lanes on pavement where cars can travel and
• 395 miles of sharrows – lanes with paint designating them as shared spaces for bikes and cars.
• fear is the No. 1 reason people don’t consider cycling as a viable way to travel, contending that more protected and separated lanes are needed to reduce such fear.
• the city is too slow to address glaring gaps in its cycling network.
• one recommendation is for the city to “prioritize building continuous bike infrastructure now, particularly on routes with gaps, instead of waiting years for larger infrastructure projects to move forward.”
• another recommendation is for the city work with the Metropolitan Transit System to increase the size of bike racks on buses, which now have space for two bikes, and to install racks that don’t require bikes to be lifted several feet in the air by commuters.
• bike lockers at MTS facilities should be accessible with a smartphone app, criticizing the current system that requires people to mail in a payment before they can start using a locker.
• The report suggests that buying a second sweeper for guarded lanes should be a priority.
• many low-income neighborhoods are ripe for more cycling infrastructure based on their potential to help complete a citywide network and equity concerns. It cites in particular corridors east of 28th Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Imperial Avenue and Ocean View Boulevard.

Obviously, based on these two reports, San Diego’s network of bike lanes are difficult and dangerous, and for school kids, insufficient. Yet, in the face of resident and business angry complaints of empty bike lanes and loss of valuable parking for merchants, it is a weak solution just to call for “more work” on the routes, corridors and lanes. The city has no money (unless there are some pots out there just for bike lanes) and needs to prioritize its funding targets.

How could anyone demand more for the bike lanes when half the public restrooms in Mission Valley are closed?

Geez, poor San Diego! When it tries to do something — like build bike lanes — it fails and when it tries not to do something — like fund restrooms — it also fails. Poor San Diego — so close to the ocean and Todd Gloria and so far from paradise.