North Park to Become More Bike Friendly?

If you’ve ridden eastbound on University Avenue from Park Boulevard to Boundary Street (or the other way), you know that North Park’s main arteriole is a crowded, auto-centric, and often dangerous stretch of road. It also happens to be one that is used heavily by bicyclists who prefer its slightly gentler hills to those of side streets. According to a story on SignOnSanDiego, proponents of a University Avenue redesign want to remove parking on the busy road, add bus only lanes, and introduce other traffic calming measures to make North Park more walkable and bikeable.

But there is not much in the plan that actually sounds good for bicyclists. Parking would be moved to angled spots on sidestreets, where drivers would have to back out, one of the most dangerous car parking situations for bicyclists. Without an accompanying bike lane, bus lanes perpetuate the problem of sandwiching cyclists between buses on their right and cars on their left, a situation that already intimidates both seasoned and inexperienced cyclists. And median strips, while good for pedestrians, often force bicyclists into either mid-block curb hopping, or into left-hand turn and u-turn zones, where the potential for encounters with inattentive drivers increases.

Although the idea to increase neighborhood viability by decreasing auto congestion is certainly to be applauded, especially in San Diego, the proposed plan for University Avenue seems poorly conceived from a bicyclist’s perspective. Remove the parking (and don’t try to make up for it on side streets), forget the medians, and add both bus and bicycle lanes. Also, throw in a traffic signal between Texas and Utah while you’re at it so pedestrians don’t have to take their life into their hands to cross. Reducing speed and congestion is a good start, but let’s think more broadly about what a complete University Avenue might look like.