29 minutes to bike 644 feet in San Diego

If you needed more proof on how the entire landscape in San Diego, especially San Diego’s urban core is dominated and dictated by the automobile, check out this visual from Ian Young that is every rider’s (and walker’s) reality in San Diego.

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Do you want to spend 29 minutes to bike 644 feet or 42 minutes? Visual by Ian Young.

Between the freeways and the urban canyons – options to get through the city on a bicycle are limited and few and why our main thoroughfares like University Avenue, El Cajon Boulevard, Balboa Avenue, Nimitz Boulevard have to be redesigned to make it safe to walk and bike. The biggest barrier: true leadership willing to make the commitment to make our city streets conducive to walking and biking.

Half a mile south of the above image, Caltrans (with SANDAG’s blessing) is busying itself with spending between $500-$600 million public dollars to widen 2 miles of SR-94. Imagine if mayor Kevin Faulconer and all the various elected representatives decided to put a stop to this project and reallocated the funding to making a connection between South Park and Fairmount Park? Now that would be a remarkable show of leadership.

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Visual from SANDAG