Report on Uptown Regional Bike Corridor: Overwhelming Support for Cycle Tracks on University Avenue

This week is a big week to decide on the preferred corridors for the Uptown Bike Corridor project. See our calendar for details and keep reading.

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Uptown Bike Corridor Meeting Attendees. Photo: Flickr/OperaSmorg

Last month, San Diegans crowded into the Santa Fe Room at Balboa Park Club to speak up in favor of dedicated bike facilities along key east/west and north south corridors.

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Uptown Bike Corridor Meeting Attendees. Photo: Flickr/OperaSmorg

If you followed our live updates on twitter, you have learned the results of the meeting, but in light of a big week with regards to the Uptown Bike Corridor – we thought it would be worthwhile to recap the meeting’s results here as we head toward picking the preferred design prior to construction.

At the start of the meeting SANDAG staff reiterated the goals of the Uptown Bike Corridor Project:

This included incorporating some of the best design ideas

  During the course of the meeting, the attendees were split into groups to discuss route preferences which included the north/south corridors:

When discussion was centered around the east/west corridor, University Avenue got most of the support:

 

Now we head into another big week for the Uptown Bike Corridor Project. This week we will learn what the preferred design is and whether SANDAG heard all of your support for cycle tracks on the east/west corridor that is University Avenue given that the choices to travel east/west are limited in comparison with the north/south options.

Design Schedule
Image: SANDAG

Thanks to Walt Chambers from Great Streets San Diego for alerting us to the important meetings that are happening this  week:

Change of any sort is always met with resistance. That will be true for the Uptown Bike Facilities. GSSD believes that Uptown deserves the safest, best, and most beautiful bicycle facilities possible. Do it right … or go home.

 

Cycletrack in Indianapolis, Indiana

If you agree, get out and show your support this week. Show SANDAG and Uptown that you want safe bike lanes to the places you want to go.

Monday July 8th – Uptown Parking District Board Meeting
5:00 PM – Joyce Beers Community Center

SANDAG’s Beth Robrahn will be presenting the Uptown Bike Plan to the Uptown Parking District Board. This board will be mostly concerned about the effect that new bike facilities will have on parking spaces. There is sure to be some discussion about removal of parking spaces.

Tuesday July 9th – Hillcrest Town Council
6:30 – Joyce Beers Community Center
SANDAG’s Beth Robrahn will be presenting  to the Hillcrest Town Council. Please come out and give your support to Beth.  Hillcrest deserves the best!

Wednesday July 10th – SANDAG Open House – Uptown Bike Plan
5:00 – 8:00 – Balboa Park Club
Come voice your support and give your input. Uptown deserves the best, safest, and most beautiful bike facilities in San Diego!

ALSO – Write Uptown’s City Council Member, Todd Gloriatoddgloria@sandiego.gov
Let’s flood his office with letters of support for the best and safest bike facilities in Uptown.

There was definitely some (metaphorical and real) tears being shed at last month’s meeting over the possible loss of auto parking in the Uptown neighborhoods if this project was constructed well with high quality and world-class bicycle infrastructure. The parking enthusiasts seemed to not have read our own city’s general plan which acknowledges that auto parking isn’t without societal cost as was recently highlighted by Voice of San Diego’s Andrew Keatts:

 “The real cost of parking is paid by all of us through higher rents, lower salaries, higher costs of goods and services, or taxes — regardless of how many cars we own or drive.”

San Diego has been built to solely accommodate automobile traffic to the exclusion of all other modes of travel. This project is providing us with an opportunity to build our way out of our current auto-centric eyesore.

Uptown today.

Meanwhile SANDAG staff was quick to point out the “high” cost of implementing cycle tracks in the Uptown neighborhoods. Highlighting the cost of implementing cycle tracks in our older, historically neglected communities without mentioning the costs of projects constructed to accommodate other modes of travel is an omission. Highways, for example, cost far more and come with much worse societal cost – hardly something worth crowing over.

We hope you can make it out to the meetings highlighted by Walt above. If not, email Uptown’s Council representative, Todd Gloria at toddgloria@sandiego.gov to get your support in writing for separated (from vehicle traffic) world-class bicycle infrastructure.