Let’s Pluck Some Low Hanging Fruit on Kearny Villa Road and 33rd Street: Ask for Better Bike Facilities

San Diego’s Department of Transportation has embarked on a project to coordinate with the city’s fast moving overlay and slurry seal program to implement bike facilities by either enhancing the existing facilities or implementing them where they don’t exist per the city’s Bicycle Master Plan. Brian Genovese referred to this initiative as low hanging fruit because implementing this striping would take no additional effort or money but impart a tremendous benefit to the community.

Two roads that have been resurfaced and are awaiting striping are Kearny Villa Road in Councilmember Lorie Zapf’s District and 33rd Street in Council President Todd Gloria’s District. This is a perfect opportunity to enhance any existing bicycle facility or implement one where it doesn’t currently exist.

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A section of Kearny Villa Road today.

Kearny Villa Road

As a major north/south connector, Kearny Villa Road needs lots of improvements. Our supporters who submitted comments to our collaborative vision map wants the entire road to be made safe especially the I-15/SR-163 interchange which needs to be redesigned to be safer for all users. This street has been home to some passive aggressive paving work in the past and the bike lane on Kearny Villa Road was finally repaved to decent standards about two and a half years ago. It was the first road to receive (some somewhat random) green paint work.

However, Kearny Villa Road has been resurfaced again and there is an opportunity to improve it even more. Reader Dave Abeln sent in an email stating the following:

Good news – The city has resurfaced much of Kearny Villa Road between the 52 and Miramar Road, on both the northbound and southbound sides.
Bad News – The temporary lane markers, which ultimately guide the laying of new stripes, leaves the bike lanes too narrow. Many sections are significantly narrower than prior to resurfacing.

This major north-south cycling corridor has sufficient pavement to provide well defined and sufficiently wide bicycle paths. It’s simply a matter of proper execution.

Please work with your city street department contacts to address this concern, now, before the new lanes are painted.

Please call Councilmember Zapf’s office at (619) 236-6616 and ask that her office works with City staff to make Kearny Villa Road better than it currently is.

33rd Street
Rosemary Bystrak sent in the following:

33rd just got paved from Howard to Monroe, and Meade is on it’s way. Turn up the heat to get bike lanes/tracks/sharrows before the striping! I’ll be calling Dion Aker at Todd Gloria’s office tomorrow. Maybe he can help?

For the residents who live along 33rd street, we’re sure they’d prefer to not have drivers treating their neighborhood street like a racetrack – so an opportunity to narrow the existing travel lane exists right now. We think a bike lane with a painted buffer would a pretty nice feature.

Please call Council President Gloria’s office at (619) 236-6633 and ask that his office work with City Staff to make 33rd Street more bike friendly while there is an opportunity.