El Cajon green lane, San Diego

Tomorrow: Fight to support GREAT cycling facilities in North Park/Mid-City

Map of Proposed North Park - Mid City Bike Corridor Project Routes
SANDAG's Map of Proposed North Park - Mid City Bike Corridor Project Routes

Tomorrow marks the third installment in SANDAG’s series of North Park - Mid-City Regional Bike Corridor Project Community Advisory Group meetings. According to Bridget Enderle, Associate Active Transportation Planner at SANDAG “The focus of this third meeting will be to review the alignment study results and to discuss the benefits, challenges, and other considerations related to each of the alignment options.” During the past meetings, three main corridors were presented as options: Meade Ave, Howard Ave/Orange Ave and Landis St/Wightman St.

An artist's rendering of El Cajon Blvd with a buffered bike lane looking east at 30th St. Artwork by BikeSD member Aseel Al Huneidi
An artist's rendering of El Cajon Blvd with a buffered bike lane looking east at 30th St. Artwork by BikeSD member Aseel Al Huneidi

As we have reported previously, cycle tracks on El Cajon Blvd have not appeared to be of much interest to SANDAG officials involved in the project, regardless of the overwhelming vocal support they have garnered at the meetings. The main discussion by project leaders has revolved around neighborhood greenways that push bikes off to the side streets. One of the main project goals claims to be “to provide DIRECT ACCESS to schools, transit, community destinations, and commercial centers”. With this stated goal, it would make sense to provide cycling facilities along a major corridor with actual destinations, rather than directing bikes through residential areas.

Here at BikeSD we are pushing for “great” facilities, not just “good enough”. If you love cycling and want to see San Diego progress as a world class cycling city, come out tomorrow and let your voice be heard. Help us fight to transform San Diego into the world’s best city for bicycling!

The meeting starts tomorrow at 6:00:

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 6:00 - 8:30 pm

at the

Teen Challenge Center

5450 Lea St, San Diego, CA 92105

 


Bikes a Hot Topic at Adams Ave Business Association

Adams Avenue Annual Business Meeting. Photo: Tyler Bergin

Last Tuesday, January 22nd at 8:00 a.m., the Adams Avenue Business Association held its annual meeting. Blind Lady Ale House hosted a packed breakfast that was attended by City Council President Todd Gloria and Council Member Marti Emerald along with representatives of businesses located along the Avenue. Of the surprising mentions during the meeting, the first was that last year, ninety new businesses have come to Adams Avenue. Of these, seven have invested at least a quarter of a million dollars in development. The second surprise was the mention of bikes by three of the four speakers, hinting toward the importance of active transportation in this vibrant community. Both Emerald and BLAH co-owner Jeff Motch personally mentioned commuting via bicycle on Adams Ave. Council President Gloria who used to live on Adams Ave in college, said it's a “bike friendly community and we're going to see more of that.”

Marti Emerald called for “new standards, not just repair” and Todd Gloria called for infrastructure improvements in the Mid-City area stating that “all of these neighborhoods are one hundred years old. Some look it.” Both agreed that they were the community's “customer service department” in this revitalized community with an emphasis on local business. Afterwards, local entrepreneur, Daniel Carlson, who recently opened Dark Horse Coffee Roasters on Adams Ave, said that he'd like to see more bike facilities as well as bike parking and parklets such as this one because, “if there's a business that is friendly to cyclists, they'll frequent it. If there's a part of town (that's bike friendly), then it benefits everybody.”

Adams Avenue Sharrows. Photo: Tyler Bergin

The bottom line is, the already dense Mid-City is experiencing tremendous growth and shows no sign of stopping. It's time for infrastructure to catch up. While North Park has recently added two bike corrals with two more on the way, Normal Heights, Kensington and University Heights still have none and all four neighborhoods lack bike lanes of any sort on major thoroughfares. This is a big opportunity for everyone involved as studies have shown that providing bike infrastructure helps to stimulate the local economy. This evening, SANDAG is holding its first meeting on the North Park - Mid-City Bike CorridorProject open to the public and we urge you to attend and offer input.

How do you envision the bicycle-friendly future of Mid-City?

- Tyler Bergin


Adams Avenue Has New Sharrows (Again). Sharrows on Park Boulevard Scrubbed Away.

Last May, sharrows were placed on Adams Avenue. Last December the sharrows were removed from Adams Avenue in preparation of the street being resurfaced. The removal of the sharrows got some local media attention as well.

I finally had a chance to ride on the Adams Avenue this past week and took a few photos of the new sharrows that were placed about a month or so ago.

New Adams Avenue Sharrows
New Adams Avenue Sharrows
New Adams Avenue Sharrows

And now after placing sharrows on Park Boulevard last year, the powers that be at City Hall has decided to scrub them away. Here is a photo I took this morning of the scrubbed away sharrow:

Park Boulevard Sharrows - Now gone

I'm not sure why it is so difficult for departments at the City to communicate with one another to avoid duplicating work and wasting precious dollars.

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For more on what sharrows actually are, read this writeup from Aaron Garland.


Who is scrubbing away the sharrows on Adams Avenue?

Yesterday, I received two reports that the sharrows that were put in last May were being scrubbed off of Adams Avenue. A fellow rider rode over to check it out and sure enough, they definitely look like someone is trying to get rid of these sharrows:

Missing Sharrows on Adams Avenue. Photo by San Diego rider, Sigurd.

As far as bicycle facilities go, sharrows are at the very bottom of the barrel only slightly above "Bike Route" signs. Bike Route signs are often placed on the side of the road that essentially serve no real purpose to riders navigating busy and dangerous streets. While sharrows are useful in getting cyclists to ride with the direction of traffic, as a bicycle facility they do very little to actually increase ridership[pdf study].

Still, it is very surprising that some rogue sharrow hater would go to the effort of attempting to scrub away the sharrows and then do a fairly bad job at it.

San Diego's bicycle coordinator, Tom Landre, has already been alerted. He rode over to check it out and I just got word that he will make sure that they get re-installed as soon as possible. Landre also mentioned that removal was not done by the city.

UPDATE: Tom Landre was able to clarify what was going on. He said that the City is just resurfacing Adams Avenue and that the sharrows will be re-installed as soon as possible.