Local Opposition Threatens San Diego’s Last ‘Slow Street’

“San Diego’s controversial two-year experiment with ‘slow streets’ suffered another setback this week when Pacific Beach leaders demanded major changes to the only slow street segment that had been popular enough to survive,” reports David Garrick.

“Pacific Beach leaders say the benefits of having a new safe space to exercise and strengthen bonds among neighbors was outweighed by the city’s poor rollout of the program, confusion about the rules and poor treatment of residents.” According to planning group member Scott Chipman, “We need a comprehensive plan, not just the city throwing a couple signs out to say this street is now a park and you residents have to deal with it.”

“Wednesday’s hearing featured 16 speakers in favor of the slow street and 16 speakers against, said [Marcella Bothwell, leader of the Pacific Beach Town Council], suggesting the experiment could work with some upgrades and different behavior from users of the slow street.” While some residents brought up disrespectful behavior from the street's users, some opponents worry that Diamond Street would receive the same controversial bike lane treatment as Gold Coast Drive. “On Mira Mesa’s Gold Coast Drive, city officials did some re-striping in early April that created new bike lanes on either side of the road, with one vehicle lane in the center to handle car traffic in both directions.” But the design confused and angered some residents who felt the city didn’t provide enough notice and who feared an increased risk of head-on collisions.

Opposition to the city’s ‘slow streets’ implementation isn’t always just about drivers. “Community leaders in San Ysidro wanted a more permanent paseo instead of a slow street segment,” for example. “City officials say the program has taught them what works, what doesn’t work and how to cooperate with residents and neighborhood leaders on future slow streets projects. But the recent uproar in Mira Mesa raises questions about that.”