Our Community Wants Full Closure of Washington/University Street Ramps to Cars

Busy, busy here - hence not a lot of time to B L O G, but I did want to quickly post our letter we sent to SANDAG earlier this month. In it we followed up on our desire for full closure of the University ramps at Ibis/Washington.
Our community has wanted these ramps closed for decades, and the Mission Hills Town Council has been actively talking about it for at least 10 years.  We feel we finally have a way to do it, given the needs of the bike project.

What is not stated in the letter below is that more than 80% of the traffic on these ramps is cut-through traffic!  EIGHTY PERCENT!

Here is our letter:

November 20, 2014

Mr. Muggs Stoll

Department Director (Land Use and Transportation Planning)

SANDAG

401 B Street, Suite 800

San Diego, CA 92101

RE: Updated Information on Uptown Regional Bikeway and Mission Hills Town Council Recommendation for Full Closure of University Avenue at Ibis

Dear Muggs:

Thank you for copying the Mission Hills Town Council (MHTC) on your Washington Street Analysis completed at the request of the Hillcrest Community Collaborative (November 4, 2014).

This work completes a request the MHTC made to SANDAG on March 17th, 2014 (letter attached-item#2), that additional analysis be completed on shifting traffic from University to Washington. We concur with the analysis and are on record as supporting the University alignment.

The second part of the request was to review whether partial or full closure of University would be preferable for the bike project. After reviewing traffic data provided by SANDAG over several meetings with various groups the MHTC voted on November 13, 2014 to recommend to SANDAG full closure of University Avenue at Ibis.

We support the full closure based on the following:

1.  Washington Avenue can accommodate, with minimal impact, the added traffic from the University ramp closure at Ibis.

2.  The remaining local level of traffic from Albatross to Ibis (less than 3000 ADT) is more compatible with the SANDAG target bike population (people interested in biking, but concerned about safety).

3.  Historically, it brings the section of University from Albatross to Ibis back to a neighborhood street (formerly called Douglas) as it existed pre-1946.

We appreciate SANDAG’s continued transparency on this project, the many public outreach meetings and willingness to review the J.T. Frost Placemaking concepts. The Town Council looks forward to an early implementation of this important alternative transportation project.

Sincerely,

Mike Zdon

Mike Zdon

President MHTC

707 738-9984

mikezdon@aol.com

Attachement: Mission Hills Town Council SANDAG/City of San Diego Letter March 17, 2014

cc:       Hon. Jack Dale (Chair SANDAG)

            Hon. Todd Gloria (Council President)

            Beth Robrahn (SANDAG)

            Adriana Martinez (City of San Diego)

            Susan McNeil Schreyer (MH BID)

            Barry Hager (MHH)

            Marlon Pangilinan (City of San Diego Planning Department)

            Elizabeth Hannon (Uptown Parking District)

            Leo Wilson (Uptown Planners) 

Bike lane blacked out!

Ok, I'm calling, "foul"!  

Tomorrow being Earth Day, a couple of us decided to hold a cleanup on Washington Street.  We set up around 8a.m and got going on picking up all the litter.  

 

As more people showed up, one noticed how the bike lane sign in the street at the corner of Washington and India had been blacked out. 

Who approved blacking out the bike lane sign on the road?  Clearly the sign posted on the right says this is a bike lane, yet someone has had it painted over and one can only assume someone at the city approved it. 

Who is responsible for this?

You can see the paint used to be there.  Now it's painted over!

Why would someone do that? And again, who decided to do it? And more importantly who approved it? Is parking really more important than the lives of our community?

We already know people travel way too fast on Washington, but to purposely make it more unsafe for those who commute by bike on it is unconsciable!  

Our cleanup was successful. Here's just a portion of the trash that went into the dumpster.  

Mission Hills Town Council Supports Bike Lanes

An excerpt from the Mission Hills Town Council's recent newsletter:

"Our Support for Bike Lanes
Mission Hills Town Council recently sent a letter of support to SANDAG and our Councilman Todd Gloria, in support of SANDAG’s bike corridor expansion project.  A portion of the lanes will be on Washington Street canyon, and University. This project will expand the transport options for our community, and will be a huge benefit to us as density increases in the future.  We have asked SANDAG to prioritize safety and for as much lost parking as possible to be mitigated.  The project is still in the design stages, and we will send future updates."

The newsletter also includes information about the City of San Diego's new bike sharing program.