Throwback Thursday: San Diego Has Moved Forward Since 2012

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2012 Die-in after David Ortiz was killed. Photo: Randy Van Vleck

Back in 2012, the city of San Diego was resistant to almost any progressive bike infrastructure. While the goal of BikeSD is to make San Diego a world-class city for bicycling by advocating for safer streets for everyone—via the implementation of protected bike lanes on main arterials alongside plenty of traffic calming—getting to this bicycling nirvana is clearly not a straight shot. For one, who could have predicted how annoying the mysterious parking lobby* would become? Or even the fact that a statewide environmental law would create a hurdle for putting down some paint.

In 2012, effective bike advocacy was still in its nascent stages. But a group of us wanted to be bold.

One of the demands leading up to the die-in, held in April of 2012, was for the city of San Diego to become a member city of NACTO, the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

“We are calling on the city to immediately adopt guidelines developed by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO). These progressive bicycle infrastructure designs strongly contribute to both perceived and actual safety for the cyclists using them.”

Miracle of miracles, the city of San Diego actually became a member city of NACTO. And since then, the city has done plenty more, implementing road diets through out the city, and even striping across intersections. Yes, green paint on asphalt is very exciting to some of us: it’s a little space for bicycle riders to travel safely without worrying about a honking driver too impatient to figure out how to safely pass or co-exist peacefully in a public space. There is still lots to be done, more hard hearts to melt, more parking fanatics to hug it out with (or drink a beer with). But it’s certainly nice to see some progress in this city. It’s just shameful that it had to come at the cost of actual lives lost—lives that could have easily been saved.

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Striped intersection across Voltaire in Ocean Beach. Photo: Nicole Burgess.

 

*Yes, I am absolutely being facetious in highlighting a non-existent lobby group, the parking lobby. But I never fail to marvel at the fact that nothing motivates otherwise sane San Diegans to turn into frothing rabid angry individuals than the idea that our largest public asset, our streets, ought to benefit all road users instead of a single group: drivers.