New parking infrastructure for bicyclists

Last week I had written about how pitiful San Diego’s bicycle population was at 0.9%.

Local business owner Jay Porter left a comment with suggestions he thought would increase the San Diego bicycle population to 20% in one year with no cost to the city, if they implemented the following policies:

1) Assess a “road services impact fee” of $5000 for each new automotive parking space built, public or private
2) Give a $500 credit against development fees (fund permitting) for each parking space removed from privately owned property
3) Assess a $250/year road services impact fee against all exisiting publicly accessible spaces
4) Assess a $50/year road services impact fee on all privately used spaces (garages, driveways, etc.)
5) Convert all free public spaces on City roadways to either 15 minute parking, enforceable 24/7, or paid/metered parking, enforceable 24/7, or turn them into bike and/or ped lanes with red zones.
6) All excess money from the assessments, apply to developing separated bikeways on major arterials (Genessee, Mission Gorge, etc).

Within one year, I’d expect bicycling would become 20% or more of transportation. Plus the local economy would boom as money was shifted from car expenses (which leave the city) to discretionary spending and bike expenses (which often stay in the city)

As if on cue, three bits of information have crossed my desk that will put some of these suggestions into effect.

1. Jessica Freeman, Program Specialist for the Uptown Partnership contacted us to ask our readers to opine about bicycle parking infrastructure. Specifically, they have allocated $20K in the 2009-2010 budget toward bike racks. The Uptown Partnership would also like our readers to email info@uptownpartnership.org with specific project ideas to improve bike access and parking. The caveat is that the projects have to be located within Uptown Partnership’s District boundaries which are the neighborhoods of “Bankers Hill-Park West, Hillcrest, and Mission Hills.”

Additionally, John Hargreaves, Project Manager at Uptown Partnership, is open to hearing your thoughts on bike racks that will be funded from the 2009-2010 budget. Contact: jhargreaves@uptownpartnership.org

2. On Wednesday (February 17) at 5:15 PM, bicyclists in San Diego are invited to attend the offices of the Centre City Development Corporation to speak up for bike specific infrastructure that is already on the agenda. The CCDC’s offices are located at 401 B St, Suite 400 in downtown San Diego. If you are unable to attend, please email Kathy Keehan (Executive Director at the Bicycle Coalition) at execdir@sdcbc.org a list of places where bike corrals would be most appreciated.

3. Omar Passons, President of the North Park Community Association, contacted us to let us know that the Association has allocated some money for bike racks within the boundaries of North Park.  We will post more details as we learn them.