Car Storage for a Few Trumps Safe Streets for All in San Diego

A major street safety campaign in San Diego is running up against the fierce territorial instinct that only on-street car parking can instill.

After a two-year public process, a plan to create safe biking and walking access to Hillcrest and other neighborhoods reached a local advisory group called Uptown Planners. The plan calls for adding bike lanes on major thoroughfares, and business owners have objected to the loss of 130 parking spaces. The opponents have also spread misinformation about how the plan will affect car traffic on local streets.

Uptown Planners play an advisory role in local government. At its meeting earlier this week, the NIMBY contingent prevailed, writes Sam Ollinger at BikeSD:

While many of us were out last night testifying and desperately pleading for safer access through along University Avenue to a board that ignored all public testimony for safer streets, except for the comments on using public spaces for private vehicle storage, a 74 year old woman crossing Camino Ruiz in a marked crosswalk suffered life threatening injuries after being hit by an SUV. No word yet on whether the driver has been charged.

Earlier this month, our endorsed candidates Michael Brennan and Kyle Heiskala were successfully elected to the Uptown Planners at the Community Planning Group election. But last night’s meeting was a special meeting and Brennan and Heiskala haven’t yet been seated — so they were unable to vote on the issue.

Uptown Planners ended up voting 10-0 against the proposal, essentially saying that bike lanes should go elsewhere and calling for the project to start from scratch, with “mitigation for any loss of parking.” Ollinger says the outcome disregarded plenty of testimony at the meeting:

…by the end of the evening, after the Uptown Planners voted, it was clear that the meeting was orchestrated to reject the hundreds of supporters for safer streets and push for a bizarre delay tactic that would somehow result in a singular safe route to bike on that would preserve all vehicular parking for perpetuity.

Amelia Anderson who stood up with her four year old daughter, Eva, and testified in tears about wanting to both live a healthy and environmentally friendly life and be safe on our streets – was completely ignored.

Elsewhere on the Network today: BTA Oregon is rallying members against a bill that would require cyclists to wear reflective clothing. And The Chicago Bicycle Advocate discusses how driverless vehicles could affect liability in pedestrian and cyclist collisions.