Mayor Kevin Faulconer: "We are going to fix our streets"
Last Wednesday, Mayor Faulconer gave his first State of the City address at Balboa Theatre. Faulconer devoted a fair bit of air time toward transportation issues, with particular emphasis on fixing potholes and repairing poor road conditions. He also acknowledged bicycle riders in his speech:
2015 is the year we seize our opportunities.
We’re going solve some of San Diego’s biggest challenges.
And we are going to start by fixing our streets.
Let me say that again.
We are going to fix our streets.
As those of you who drove or biked here know, about a quarter of our streets are in poor condition.
As a cyclist let me tell you, if you think driving over a pothole is bad, try hitting one on a bike
In particular, he emphasized that he plans to seek council approval on his five-year plan to double the city's street repair efforts:
This spring I will ask the City Council to approve my five-year plan to double our street repair efforts.
We will repair one thousand miles of streets.
The city has 2,960 street miles. So we can expect to see a little less than half fixed in the next five years.
Faulconer also delved into what he sees as our city's identity: innovation.
Our city beats to the pulse of innovation
In the course of the past two years, we have managed to witness three mayors (including one interim mayor) lay out their vision for San Diego. Let's recap those visions before addressing Faulconer's vision to fix our city streets.
In 2012, former mayor Filner stated the following in his State of the City address:
[...]we need to support those efforts with transportation systems that enhance our quality of life – pedestrian-friendly designs like Bird Rock’s roundabouts, dedicated bike paths linking neighborhoods, and improved options, to meet the rapidly changing needs of our residents.
We must restore urban planning as an independent and leading voice for envisioning our
communities’ future.Land use and development review functions within City government will be reorganized into a Department of
Healthy, Safe, and Livable Neighborhoods. This Department will focus on accelerating completion of our community plans; putting proper emphasis on transit - oriented development, walkability and bikeability; economic development; energy sustainability; affordable housing; and elevating our expectations for design excellence in new development
Filner went on to state:
I will urge other local agencies to focus their efforts in complementary ways. I will ask SANDAG to re-prioritize transit funds to fast-track alternative and public transportation options.
I will advocate at the Airport Authority for an airport that is designed around multimodal access and
served by light rail and direct access from Interstate 5, rather than relying exclusively on automobile access from Harbor Drive.The infrastructure being put in place by these two agencies must work seamlessly with our City’s needs.
Last year, Councilmember Todd Gloria laid out his vision (filling in for the mayor's role, after Filner went down in flames, figuratively speaking). Gloria's vision for San Diego included a truly innovative vision: one where San Diego would be a "world-class bike city".
He laid out his vision for bicycling as a transportation mode while also acknowledging the basics of road maintenance, fixing potholes and resurfacing our city streets. The bond to bring about the funds needed to fix our streets was approved during Gloria's tenureship as interim mayor. Gloria's State of the City included this:
Finally, San Diego’s transportation future demands that we become a world-class bike city.
Fifty miles of roadway were restriped last year to accommodate wider bike lanes. Green bike lanes have been installed at numerous intersections and hundreds of shared lane markers have been placed around the city. Next month, we will eliminate traffic lanes on two local streets to create safer bikeways. Yes, we have begun eliminating car traffic lanes for bike lanes in southern California. We’re doing it by working together.
Later this year, our bike sharing program will kick off with the phased installation of 185 stations around the city. This partnership with DecoBike will not only expand bicycle access to more San Diegans, but will improve the connectivity of our bike, pedestrian and public transit systems.
Our updated Bicycle Master Plan and the $200 million approved by SANDAG late last year mean bigger and better advancements in this area. Pedaling makes sense for public health, our environment, reducing traffic congestion and for greater interaction in our neighborhoods.
Our vision is for San Diegans to be connected by a transportation network with robust pedestrian, bicycle, car and transit options. Our streets are not just for cars. They’re for people. And when they are designed and function as the public spaces they should be, everyone benefits.
Having reviewed previous State of the City addresses, I can't help but state that I was a bit disappointed in Mayor Faulconer's transportation vision for the future. While Faulconer only focused on potholes, I kept hoping that "fixing our streets" was also another way of stating that he intended to reallocate space on our city streets and ensure that our streets were not as deadly.
Fixing up potholes and repaving streets is an important service, but its hardly something I would consider to be the hallmark of innovation. Cities hoping to compete in the global marketplace, have to - at a bare minimum - have streets free of potholes. Considering the ambitious goals set within the mayor's Climate Action Plan (that went through Filner, Gloria and then eventually Faulconer), I was hoping Faulconer would expand on his vision for how bicycling would help meet that goal. Potholes was the last thing I thought the mayor would expound upon.
In recent years, other cities where mayors are touting their city's ability to innovate, while simultaneously daring other mayors to best them, implementing protected bike lanes have been a cornerstone of their city's transportation agenda. Reducing all traffic fatalities has been another innovative idea that leaders around the U.S. have started to embrace.
In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel has stated that he intends to,
build more protected bike lanes than any other city in the country, redesign intersections to ensure they are safer for bicyclists, and improve hundreds of miles of residential streets for bicyclists, pedestrians, and the people that live on them.
In the little city of Pittsburgh, Mayor William Peduto fast tracked plans to implement protected bike lanes within months of getting into office and then made bold claims on how he intends to have Pittsburgh leapfrog every other city on bicycling and livability.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio was one of the first mayors in the country to embrace and adopt Vision Zero.
In San Diego, since getting sworn into office, our mayor has repeatedly reminded everyone within hearing (or recording) distance of the fact that he is a cyclist. His appointment of SDPD Chief Shelley Zimmerman, also a rider, is definitely unprecedented as we now have two leaders at the top of their organizations who have a sympathetic ear for cycling issues. Early last year, Faulconer appointed Kris McFadden to take over the city's Department of Transportation. McFadden's highest priority? Fixing potholes.
Last year, the mayor supporting boosting the city's Transportation budget by adding 16 full time positions. Most (14) of those positions were devoted to fixing potholes.
So while I was disappointed at our mayor's idea of innovation, I hope that he will focus on charting a course that indeed innovative during his term. Fixing streets certainly includes eliminating potholes, but truly fixing our streets would induce more bicycling and walking while also improving our quality of life and meeting and aiming to exceed the goals outlined in the mayor's Climate Action Plan.
In a city where only 1.1% of San Diegans regularly ride a bicycle is truly embarrassing. Re-allocating space and redesigning deadly freeway interchanges so that walking and riding a bicycle isn't just something open to the 1%, but something that everyone in the city can participate in - now that would be really innovative.
News, Links, and Other Views
San Diego
- We received a $10,000 grant from PeopleForBikes for our campaign on El Cajon Boulevard, one of the city's eight most deadly corridors. Our campaign, Complete the Boulevard, will focus on reducing all traffic deaths and serious injuries to zero by 2020.
- Leo Wilson, chair of Uptown Planners, and also a representative for Bankers Hill Community Association (not Bankers Hill Community Group) has sued the city of San Diego for implementing the newest segment of buffered bike lanes on Fifth Avenue between Upas and Laurel. Wilson states he's worried about the "process" in which the city implemented the bike lanes while his lawsuit alleges vague concerns over how CEQA, the state's environmental law, was implemented.
- Meanwhile, there is nary a peep about the "trail of damage" being left behind in Uptown's Hillcrest by drunk drivers.
- Bankers Hill Community Group (the pro-bike group in Bankers Hill) is petitioning the city to make Sixth Avenue safer.
- A new blog, by a (anonymous) resident who says YES. San Diego Yimby has some ideas for some low hanging fruit that San Diego can pluck before it goes rotten.
- Theresa Lynn Owens, the driver who drove the wrong way on Fiesta Island last summer and injured several riders from the San Diego Bike Club including Juan Carlos Viñolo who now has permanent paralysis from the waist down, has been deemed mentally competent to stand trial. Viñolo, after spending 103 days in the hospital, went home before Thanksgiving.
- An excellent piece on how building more roads doesn't ease (vehicle) traffic congestion, but instead makes it worse.
- San Diego's own Cycling Camp has assumed ownership of the Great Western Bicycle Rally in Paso Robles.
- Air quality in San Ysidro is terrible, and SANDAG has plans to make it better by encouraging more residents to travel by bicycle or by foot.
- We've endorsed the Frost Plan for University Avenue in Uptown. What is the Frost Plan? Walt Chambers has the writeup.
- Hutton Marshall of Uptown News, wrote about protected bike lanes.
- Road Bike Party has made its way to San Diego and the video is pretty amazing. Pretty neat to see San Diego featured so well. Unlike Road Bike Party 2, there is no footage of riding on our city streets (let alone backwards on a slope as Martyn Ashton demonstrated). Maybe there was a reason for that editorial decision.
San Diego County
- Brian Grover, chairman of the Encinitas Bike and Pedestrian Committee, has been tapped to head Encinitas' traffic and public safety commission.
- Vista plans to create a safe network to encourage, promote and provide safety for residents who want to ride but come face to face with the fallacious arguments by residents too attached to free parking even at the cost of public safety.
- The appellate court has ruled that San Diego County's Climate Plan is illegal.
- The SANDAG board voted 20-1 to appeal the appellate court ruling over their $200 billion transportation plan. Here is more about the one person who voted not to. There seems to be some explanation behind why the board almost always votes unanimously on decisions.
- Recent protests stemming from anger over the decision in Ferguson and New York City have resulted in protesters blocking traffic on freeway interstates, including here in San Diego. The story of building interstates is about creating segregation and vaccums of economic disparity, to move vehicles quickly at a high societal cost. But as Alex in NextSTL writes, there is something powerful when protesters shut down a freeway to express their message. As Chuck Marohn writes, "Ferguson is the natural byproduct of this auto-based, government-led development experiment we have undertaken. Failing suburbs are where the power shifts of our time are concentrating desperation and discontent"
- San Diego didn't make the list of resilient cities despite the city's proposed climate action plan which includes increasing bike mode share to 18% by 2035. Perhaps San Diego is not aiming high enough?
California
- Calbike has announced its ambitious 2015 legislative agenda.
- In Santa Monica, biking is up 356%.
- Oakland has approved protected bike lanes on Telegraph Avenue, a street very similar to University Avenue.
- Hit and Runs are on the rise in California.
Elsewhere
- When discussing fatalities (and thus plans to eliminate road traffic falities), fatality rates is not the same as fatality numbers. Here is the League's take.
- The Netherlands (a place not known for its sunny weather) has opened a bike path that converts sunlight to power.
- Paris plans to ban cars from its city center.
- Among the many reasons shared spaces is not a panacea for traffic crashes, the challenges they post to the blind. Separated bike infrastructure, not shared space, benefits all users - where they ride a bicycle or not
- In news about mayors who aren't leaders, the Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has ordered the removal of the city's first protected bike lanes.
- Now that Toronto's mayor Rob Ford is gone, the city plans on implementing a road diet to increase safety and provide safe spaces to walk and ride a bicycle.
- The history of the automobile began with bicycles
The plan was to take a small break while we finish up some administrative work, but too many of you missed these roundups and so they are back earlier than planned. Hope you have much to think about with this week's edition.
Year 2 Annual Report
As we are wrapping up some behind-the-scenes and administrative details involved with ending our second year of advocacy, I wanted to post a link to our second Annual Report for your review:
We did accomplish a lot, primarily the fulfilment of long forgotten decades-old promises like the construction I-15 bike path from Mid-City to Mission Valley (construction is scheduled to begin next summer), and the creation of the Bicycle Advisory Committee to oversee the implementation of the city's Bicycle Master Plan, the latter is thanks in large part to former Council President and current District Three Councilman, Todd Gloria.
After two years of advocacy, we are taking a step back to be more strategic in our work while continuing to maintain our nimbleness so we can better respond to needs as they arise. While things are quiet on the blog front, be assured that plenty is being planned for the year ahead.
But in the meantime, do review our second Annual Report and go out for a ride. It's really nice this time of the year, as always.
Urge the SANDAG Board to Not Appeal the 2050 Regional Transportation Plan Court Decision
Please sign our letter asking the SANDAG Board to not appeal the SANDAG Regional Transportation Plan ruling.
-----
Late last month a California appeals court rejected SANDAG's 2050 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) for failing to meet our state's commitment to lower greenhouse gas emissions, or as KPBS' Alison St. John puts it, the commitment to "taking approximately 15 million cars off the nation's roads".
This marks the second time our judicial system has indicated that SANDAG, our regional planning agency, ought to come up with a better plan than the one they seem intent to push through.
The SANDAG 2050 Regional Transportation Plan is a $200 billion dollar plan that covers all transportation projects scheduled to get implemented on the ground between now and the year 2050. Of that $200 billion, $2.5 billion has been set aside for bikes. Sounds great. But that $2.5 billion is 1% of total funds that will be spent. Furthermore, SANDAG themselves clearly don't consider bicycling to be an actual mode of transportation despite all their handwaving on how much they support bicycling given their own projected growth of bicycling as shown below:
In short, SANDAG is spending $2.5 billion dollars on improving the bikeability in San Diego County but don't anticipate the percentage of people riding a bicycle to change in any way. While our advocacy supports the creation of world-class bike infrastructure, that advocacy goes hand in hand with relying on data that more people on bikes results in less people driving on the roads and a healthier and more improved quality of life for all.
State law and community support calls for reducing the number of vehicles on the roads, not maintaining the status quo - which is what SANDAG's plans actually intend to do. Thus, the existing proposed 2050 RTP is nothing short of a big waste of money - our money.
We have been asking, along with many other community based groups and advocacy organizations, for SANDAG to create a new scenario - in their update to the 2050 RTP. To date the SANDAG board has ignored their own community and constituents. Now, the courts have rejected SANDAG's RTP and we are urging the SANDAG Board of Directors that will be meeting tomorrow in a closed session to not appeal the most recent court decision. Please join us and sign this letter that will be automatically emailed to the SANDAG Board of Directors.
Leadership and Bike Advocacy's Future
Advocates make things happen. Photo via the Alliance for Biking and Walking.
A little over two years ago, I made a commitment to bike advocacy. A few trusted friends convinced me to incorporate the organization and transform my website into a proper non-profit organization. BikeSD launched as an “official” organization in late September 2012, building on the work I had been doing for a number of years.
To my amazement, we were extremely well received. My assumption going in was that BikeSD representatives would occasionally attend a handful of public meetings and act as the voice for the bicycle riding community. I’m happy to report that, more than two years later, our non-profit has obtained some substantial wins.
Prior to BikeSD's launch, I did a small online fundraiser. Twenty four trusting individuals donated enough money to allow me to attend my first Leadership Retreat in Long Beach, CA. I worked hard at that retreat, taking notes, networking like a madwoman. Since that retreat, I have put the lessons I learned into practice by working every day to build a strong grassroots group. This group - I am very proud to say - was awarded the 2013 Advocacy Organization of the Year award at the annual Alliance Advocacy Awards held in Washington D.C.. Gobsmacked doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about that accomplishment.
This year, I applied for and received a full (very generous) scholarship to attend the Leadership Retreat, the Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference and the Future Bike conference. I was lucky enough to do this thanks to a generous scholarship from the Alliance for Biking and Walking. I came home completely inspired and invigorated. My scholarship came from a fund that was established from the insurance settlement resulting from the death of an advocate, Susie Stephens. Susie was killed while crossing the street by a turning touring bus. Her mother, Nancy, established this fund to award "scholarships for new and growing advocates to attend trainings."
It is not lost on me that the funds that opened the doors for me came from the untimely (and completely preventable) death of an advocate who left a void in the bike advocacy movement that is still felt viscerally.
To those of us who work trying to make our streets better, it can feel like change happens glacially. Sure, there have been wins. But people are dying and continue to die on our streets every single day. Meanwhile, our local media runs half-baked rants demonizing both cycling and its advocates. When I step back and observe all of this, it seems so unbelievably and unnecessarily cruel. Wanting barrier protected pathways to safely ride a bicycle or walk alongside speeding traffic isn't a difficult thing to implement and shouldn't be ignored. Reducing our speed limits on neighborhood streets shouldn't require a process akin to the Warren Commission Hearings. Yet that's our reality. More than two years after David Ortiz was killed on Balboa Avenue at the intersection of I-805, nothing has been done to slow down the merging traffic. The hit-and-run epidemic is well-documented; yet it hasn’t been enough to get our governor to act on it. It's almost like we as a society want people to die on our roads.
But what does any of this have to do with what I learned back east? What I learned was something my vice chair, Dr. Esteban del Rio, always reminds me of: livability. We have to focus on the livability of our neighborhoods and public spaces- and reclaiming our streets as public gathering spaces that they once were. The idea of livability fits into our concept of culture. Living in one of the most car-centric cities in the country, we have to find other ways to facilitate mobility outside of the automobile. And this means that we have to talk about broadening our movement in a very explicit, deliberate, and focused way. While bike advocacy is probably not going to be a solution to every single societal ill, we as a movement can effect change. And I'm hoping that with the lessons learned, we at BikeSD can be a model of effective advocacy that will serve to inspire both within and outside the bike advocacy world.