Uptown Planners: Determined to prove they are out of touch with the needs of their own community
Uptown Planners is the community group that represents the neighborhoods of Bankers Hill, Hillcrest, Mission Hills and University Heights. They serve in an advisory capacity to the city of San Diego on all land use issues and development projects.
In the 1960s and 70s, the city of San Diego adopted policies to establish community planning groups. Their role was to:
provide citizens with an opportunity for involvement in advising the City Council, the Planning Commission, and other decision-makers on development projects, general or community plan amendments, rezonings and public facilities. The recommendations of the planning groups are integral components of the planning process, and are highly regarded by the City Council and by staff.
As we mentioned earlier this year with regard to why involvement at the community group level was important.
If you are interested in how land use decisions (including decisions involving when and where bicycle infrastructure gets implemented) are made in your individual community and you want to participate in the process of influencing these decisions, i.e. you care about where you are going, then you need to know the way to get there.
As an advocacy organization we understand the importance of civic engagement especially as it relates to the implementation of our own mission. On Tuesday, the Uptown Planners decided to disregard the needs of their own community.
On Tuesday, the Uptown Planners had two main items on their agenda of relevance to bicycling:
1. The SANDAG Uptown Early Action Project
2. The city's first road diet to be implemented later this year on 4th and 5th Avenue from Laurel to Elm Street.
The meeting room last Tuesday at the Joyce Beers Center was packed (it was standing room only) and most attendees were supporters for both of the above mentioned items on the agenda. Attendees were residents, business representatives and visitors who either regularly visit the Uptown neighborhood or travel through the neighborhoods that are under the purview of the Uptown Planners.
For over a year, SANDAG has been engaging the Uptown community to implement the Uptown Project - one of the projects that is part of SANDAG's Early Action Plan. This is part of the regional planning agency's effort to counter the legal challenges they are dealing with in implementing their very car-centric and highway happy 2050 Regional Transportation Plan. For nearly a year, SANDAG representatives have invited and engaged with all groups and constituents that would be affected by and benefit from the Uptown Project. To our knowledge, the Uptown Planners' representatives didn't engage in a meaningful way to affect or contribute toward the process.
One message that this process revealed was a deep hunger for a safer, saner and more inviting and humane street network to ride a bicycle on.
On Tuesday evening SANDAG's Beth Robrahn presented the results of the community engagement and analysis done to date. Despite testimonies from the assembled participants that went on for over an hour with the majority supporting SANDAG's project which included business representatives, Uptown residents and non-Uptown residents who regularly travel through and stop in Uptown, the Uptown Planners decided to vote on creating a subcommittee to study the project instead of being the representative group they've been charged with being. Rather than listening to the community and participating in the process that has been underway since late last year, Uptown Planners chose to ignore the process and their community's needs.
Nationally, the trends show that 18-39 years olds are ditching driving and and instead opting to use other modes of travel such as bicycling, walking or taking transit. According to the Census Bureau, over 50% of Uptown's residents are under 40 years of age.
This trend of wanting choices is reflected in San Diego where in the last six years, San Diegan's hunger for options has been revealed in the extraordinary growth of low car households.
National trends, local realities or even the community voices were irrelevant to the Uptown Planners because they voted to not support or endorse the SANDAG Uptown Bike Corridor Project. Uptown Planners chose to ignore the community they were tasked with representing.
----
The second item was presented by city staff for the Uptown Planners' informational purposes and the issue was not open for a vote by the board. The good news is that by the end of the year, 4th and 5th Avenue will be leaner and less terrifying to ride on. Buffered bike lanes (buffered with paint) will be implemented on 4th and 5th Avenue from Elm to Laurel Streets.
When the Uptown Planners meeting minutes are posted, we will update this post and post the names of the individuals who voted to support studying the project instead of supporting it. We will also post our thoughts on the next steps that we need to take. But for now, if you live in the Uptown neighborhoods (Bankers Hill, Hillcrest, Mission Hills and University Heights.)- email your Council representative and interim mayor, Todd Gloria [toddgloria@sandiego.gov], to express your dissatisfaction with the Uptown Planners unwillingness to listen to their own community.
Tonight: Uptown Planners to Vote on Buffered Bike Lanes on 4th and 5th Avenue, SANDAG to Present Draft Alignments of Uptown Corridor
As Walt Chambers likes to say, San Diego's future is being tried out in Uptown first.
Two big projects will be voted on by the Uptown Planners tonight: the SANDAG Uptown alignments, and the city's first road diet which is being proposed for 4th and 5th Avenue (pdf link to agenda).
The Uptown Planners meeting starts at 6 pm tonight.
Uptown Planners meeting
When: Tonight (9/2/2013) at 6 pm
Where: Joyce Beers Community Center (4065 Vermont Street)
Parking: Bike parking is usually hard to find, so get there early to lock up to the nearest pole
Since the city council voted to unanimously approve the bike share program, city staff at the transportation department have started to work to implement bike routes to key destinations in the urban core communities that bike share users would want to reach: such as Balboa Park, the Embarcadero, the new Central library and the downtown ballpark. Rather than becoming a bike friendly city first before starting a bike share program, San Diego has decided to innovate by implementing its bike friendliness in a more counter-intuitive way.
This evening city staff will be presenting plans to put 4th and 5th Avenue between Laurel and Elm Street on a diet. The city plans on removing on vehicle travel lane and replacing it with a buffered bike lane. These two streets are prime for the city's first road diet given their overbuilt capacity of three lanes.
Being a new concept in San Diego, many might be understandably upset. Losing anything is an unpleasant feeling. However the Uptown Community Plan last updated in 1988 had the following goals (among others):
• Give highest priority to improving local traffic circulation and enhancing the pedestrian environment
• Route through traffic onto freeways and onto major arterials such as Washington Street.
• Redesign specific access ramps to and from State Route 163 to reduce congestion and traffic hazards.
• Facilitate the use of alternative modes of transportation.
When it came to bicycle facilities the plan called for developing "comprehensive bikeway system which would not only provide a safe connection between neighborhoods, schools and commercial areas, but which would connect with bikeways in neighboring communities and Centre City."
25 years after the Uptown Plan was adopted, it is safe to say that outside of some sharrow markings on University Avenue and 6th Avenue, the city has done next to nothing to facilitate safe bicycle travel in the Uptown neighborhood. So putting Uptown's streets on a diet is a welcome change. Hope to see you tonight.
Report on Uptown Regional Bike Corridor: Overwhelming Support for Cycle Tracks on University Avenue
This week is a big week to decide on the preferred corridors for the Uptown Bike Corridor project. See our calendar for details and keep reading.
---
Last month, San Diegans crowded into the Santa Fe Room at Balboa Park Club to speak up in favor of dedicated bike facilities along key east/west and north south corridors.
If you followed our live updates on twitter, you have learned the results of the meeting, but in light of a big week with regards to the Uptown Bike Corridor - we thought it would be worthwhile to recap the meeting's results here as we head toward picking the preferred design prior to construction.
At the start of the meeting SANDAG staff reiterated the goals of the Uptown Bike Corridor Project:
Project goals: Increase choices and connect communities. Improve safety for everyone. Build & support community initiatives. Economic Dev.
— BikeSD (@BikeSD) June 13, 2013
This included incorporating some of the best design ideas
Best design ideas include low stress models like bike boulevards and cycle tracks. #uptownbikes — BikeSD (@BikeSD) June 13, 2013
During the course of the meeting, the attendees were split into groups to discuss route preferences which included the north/south corridors:
Bachman, 3rd, 4th, and 5th studied to be major North / South routes with combination of dedicated cycle tracks & bike boulevards. — BikeSD (@BikeSD) June 13, 2013
When discussion was centered around the east/west corridor, University Avenue got most of the support:
Discussion breakout groups come back reporting majority support for University Ave as major bikeway in Uptown. #uptownbikes
— BikeSD (@BikeSD) June 13, 2013
Now we head into another big week for the Uptown Bike Corridor Project. This week we will learn what the preferred design is and whether SANDAG heard all of your support for cycle tracks on the east/west corridor that is University Avenue given that the choices to travel east/west are limited in comparison with the north/south options.
Thanks to Walt Chambers from Great Streets San Diego for alerting us to the important meetings that are happening this week:
Change of any sort is always met with resistance. That will be true for the Uptown Bike Facilities. GSSD believes that Uptown deserves the safest, best, and most beautiful bicycle facilities possible. Do it right … or go home.
Cycletrack in Indianapolis, Indiana
If you agree, get out and show your support this week. Show SANDAG and Uptown that you want safe bike lanes to the places you want to go.
Monday July 8th - Uptown Parking District Board Meeting
5:00 PM – Joyce Beers Community CenterSANDAG’s Beth Robrahn will be presenting the Uptown Bike Plan to the Uptown Parking District Board. This board will be mostly concerned about the effect that new bike facilities will have on parking spaces. There is sure to be some discussion about removal of parking spaces.
Tuesday July 9th – Hillcrest Town Council
6:30 – Joyce Beers Community Center
SANDAG’s Beth Robrahn will be presenting to the Hillcrest Town Council. Please come out and give your support to Beth. Hillcrest deserves the best!Wednesday July 10th – SANDAG Open House – Uptown Bike Plan
5:00 – 8:00 – Balboa Park Club
Come voice your support and give your input. Uptown deserves the best, safest, and most beautiful bike facilities in San Diego!ALSO – Write Uptown’s City Council Member, Todd Gloria. toddgloria@sandiego.gov
Let’s flood his office with letters of support for the best and safest bike facilities in Uptown.
There was definitely some (metaphorical and real) tears being shed at last month's meeting over the possible loss of auto parking in the Uptown neighborhoods if this project was constructed well with high quality and world-class bicycle infrastructure. The parking enthusiasts seemed to not have read our own city's general plan which acknowledges that auto parking isn't without societal cost as was recently highlighted by Voice of San Diego's Andrew Keatts:
“The real cost of parking is paid by all of us through higher rents, lower salaries, higher costs of goods and services, or taxes — regardless of how many cars we own or drive.”
San Diego has been built to solely accommodate automobile traffic to the exclusion of all other modes of travel. This project is providing us with an opportunity to build our way out of our current auto-centric eyesore.
Meanwhile SANDAG staff was quick to point out the "high" cost of implementing cycle tracks in the Uptown neighborhoods. Highlighting the cost of implementing cycle tracks in our older, historically neglected communities without mentioning the costs of projects constructed to accommodate other modes of travel is an omission. Highways, for example, cost far more and come with much worse societal cost - hardly something worth crowing over.
We hope you can make it out to the meetings highlighted by Walt above. If not, email Uptown's Council representative, Todd Gloria at toddgloria@sandiego.gov to get your support in writing for separated (from vehicle traffic) world-class bicycle infrastructure.
Uptown Planners Vote to make India Street Safer for all Road Users
I attended the Uptown Planners Meeting earlier tonight to listen to how the Uptown Planners Board would vote on the issue of removing 137 parking spaces on India Street and Kettner Blvd in order to install bike lanes going northbound and southbound.
Over a hundred people were in attendance to offer their support or opposition to the installation of bike lanes.
The Uptown Planners is the city-recognized community-planning advisory board for the neighborhoods of Bankers Hill/Park West, Middletown, Mission Hills, Hillcrest, and University Heights (west of Park Boulevard). Their Board voted against removing the automobile parking spaces because of business opposition against the removal. However, they voted to recommend installation of lighting in the tunnel that goes under the 5 to ensure the safety of cyclists who ride the corridor. Additionally they voted to recommend that traffic calming measures be implemented on India Street and that a feasible alternative for cyclists ought to be made a priority. They voted to have the 35mph speed limit enforced so that sharrows, if painted, could be effective rather than a liability.
All in all, it was a successful vote for cyclists that will ensure that we're one step closer to making India Street (which was under the ruling of the Uptown Planners) safer for all users.
