BikeSD Letter to Planning Commission on Uptown Community Plan

City of San Diego Planning Commission
1222 First Ave, Fifth Floor
San Diego, CA 92101

Dear Members of the Planning Commission,

Bike San Diego asks the Planning Commission to reject the Uptown Community Plan Update. While we acknowledge the many years of effort developing the Update, the current version of the plan is inconsistent with the requirements of the City’s Climate Action Plan and therefore should not be approved.

The Climate Action Plan (CAP) calls for a bike mode share of 18% in Uptown by 2035, a significant increase from current levels. However, since the Uptown Community Plan’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) performed no analysis for Vehicle Miles Traveled as required by California SB 743, there are insufficient improvements to bicycle infrastructure necessary to achieve this target. The Uptown Community Plan Update also lacks a single continuous, safe east-west bike route through the entire community. To address this problem, the planned Class IV University Ave cycletrack should be extended west, to at least 1st Ave.  

In addition, by only considering automobile Level of Service in the EIR, the resulting autocentric plan lacks the multi-modal infrastructure mitigation necessary to accommodate the growth forecast in the Community Plan Update, or the associated increase in greenhouse gas emissions when residents have no robust alternative to driving.

Finally, the Uptown Community Plan Update reduces the number of allowable residential units by 1900 units from the 1988 Uptown Community Plan. This also conflicts with the City’s CAP requirements of significantly increasing density in Transit Priority Areas to accommodate the growth anticipated by SANDAG and the CAP. Areas with higher population density have higher bike mode share rates.

Thank you,
Jeff Kucharski
Board President
BikeSD, Inc