Acting on a staff recommendation, the city council decided that skateboarding should be included in the Comprehensive Active Transportation Plan and its committee should review the current ordinance and recommend any changes.
Before sending the issue to the committee, the council made it clear that it was ready to allow skateboarding in the street. Councilman Richard Bailey proposed overturning Section F, the portion of the current ordinance that forbids skateboarding on streets or roadways. Skateboarding on the sidewalk “can be more dangerous than on the street,” he said. His proposal quickly gained the support from the majority of council members. “It’s silly that kids can’t skateboard on the street,” Mayor Casey Tanaka said.
Councilwoman Carrie Downey had reservations. Citing safety concerns, she recommended leaving it to the Active Transportation Committee to decide whether people could skateboard in the street. “It shouldn’t just be dictated from the dais,” she said.
Bailey said that the council would be shirking its responsibility and could incur the wrath of the public. “They’re going to say, ‘It takes you guys a year to deliberate on this?’ ”
Downey countered that allowing skateboarding in the street not only posed a safety issue, but would upset motorists. “They get mad when bicyclists don’t follow the rules,” she said. She also reminded the council that the city opened the skateboard park in large part to keep skateboards out of traffic.
In the end Bailey won the day and Downey’s vote. At a future meeting the council will decide whether or not to remove Section F from the ordinance, when there will be a staff report and ample opportunity for the public to voice its views.
The rest of the meeting was informational. Skateboarding was the only agenda item discussed. All the others were added to the consent calendar and approved unanimously.
BRIDGE
Downey announced that State Senator Ben Hueso planned to introduce emergency legislation to halt the Port of San Diego’s Bridge Lighting Project until a way was found to stop the loss of life on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. Hueso met with Downey, Bailey, Wayne Strickland and other members of the Coronado San Diego Bridge Collaborative for Suicide Prevention on October 28.
At the meeting Hueso also promised to find money to pay for safety measures. Two possible revenue sources are: money from Measure A, if it passes, or the state could reintroduce the toll.
Strickland had organized the meeting with Hueso. He spoke to the senator after a memorial service for victims of an October 15 accident on the bridge. Four people were killed and others injured when an allegedly intoxicated sailor’s truck crashed into the bridge barrier and plummeted into Chicano Park below. The 24 year-old driver has been charged with a DUI and four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter.
TRAFFIC/STREETS
City Manager Blair King reeled off a number of steps that the city has undertaken to improve traffic conditions:
Uniformed traffic guards will be stationed on the Silver Strand at the Tarawa Road and Route 75 intersection during the morning commute (6:30am to 8:30am), and the traffic signal there will be set to flashing red. CalTrans approved the pilot program at a meeting with the city last week. The pilot project will begin on November 7 and will end on December 15, except Thanksgiving week when traffic volume is expected to be low.
The city will then assess the results, but hopes that the pilot project will “maximize the efficiency of traffic and pedestrian movement at this location, and improve the traffic flow.”
Bulb outs on Third and Fourth Street will be installed by the end of the year. Speed tables are not an option, because Caltrans, who has jurisdiction on Third and Fourth Streets, won’t allow them. “They have a policy against speed tables on three lane highways and won’t make an exception,” King said.
The Gateway Project gets underway early in 2017 with a preliminary engineering and environmental study. The project to transform the old toll plaza at the bridge has been in the works for some time. The idea is to beautify the area and calm traffic coming off the bridge.
A traffic signal at Fourth and Alameda is in the works.
If the city agrees to accept liability, the temporary pedestrian crossing sign on F Avenue and Fourth Street will be made permanent.
CalTrans is replacing the incandescent lights on the bridge with LED lights. “They will not be brighter, but will have a different glow,” King said. This change is usually done because LEDs save energy by using less wattage, they don’t burn as warm, and they have a longer life.
