Please use this thread to document presumed simple fixes needed, for which the City is responsible, to make it safer for cyclists to travel San Diego streets, including "low-level" fixes such as (but not limited to):

- Problems with signals and bicycle detection (a perennial favorite!)
- Unsafe potholes, cracks, and alignment problems
- Sweeping needed
- Foilage trimming needed
- Unsafe road markings, signals or signs.
- Persistent illegal parking in bike lane or at curb
- Persistently unsafe motorist behavior at particular locations

In describing the problem, please be has detailed and accurate as possible, e.g. "Utah St. and University Ave. intersection - light detection in both lanes northbound and southbound Utah St. not working".

Please do not use this thread for more complex fixes needed such as (as these would require a broader effort to get fixed):

"Please fix the Pacific Hwy - Barnett junction"
"Please install separated bikeway on University Ave."
"Please turn Island Ave. into a bicycle avenue"
"Please reduce all speed limits by 20%"
(All of the above would be very nice, mind you!).

The current SD CIty bicycle coordinator is Tom Landre (TLandre@sandiego.gov, (619) 533- 3045) and there are many other ways than this to reach him with your comments or concerns: I don't even know that he monitors this forum (although I would hope he does). And either way, I will alert him to the presence of this thread so that he is aware of it. He is a busy man - this way, he has one thread he may want to monitor, as opposed to the entire forum.

By posting here (as opposed to - or even better, in addition to - using emails, phone calls, web forms, your favorite advocacy organization, - there's even a smartphone app -, etc.) you have permanently published your concerns for all to see, and perhaps encouraged other cyclists to be more vigilant and pro-active to get the presumed easy stuff fixed.

But feel free to contact the City with trouble tickets any way you prefer - just don't ignore it, or think that somebody else will take care of it.

Nice list, billd; totally agree with every single one!

I just thought of another one on north bound Morena. The right turn only lanes for Baker, Ticonderoga and Paul Jones make the whole trip dangerous. I control the only straight through lane here (45mph zone) and I have been safe but I have also been severely harassed for it. The right turn only lanes should just be a second regular straight through traffic lane instead with sharrows and BMUFL signs. It will have to become a right turn only lane at Balboa but that's O.K. It would still be a big improvement for everyone and it would just be paint changes and a few signs. (***speed limit comment self censored***)

Right now, most riders ride straight through in the right turn only lane which is illegal or in the parking lane if it's open which is dangerous when you're on the right side of a right turn lane.

Headed east on university ave at park. Left turn onto park to head north won't detect a bike no matter what. Spent a lot of time waiting for that signal after a late shift.

A small improvement would be to put sharrows leading away from the Vermont St. Bridge down Lincoln Ave so it connects to the Maryland St. bike lane. Of course this should be done in reverse back to the Vermont St. Bridge.

Again this isn't pressing but as a regular user of this route it would be huge improvement for the many cyclists and cars who come through this area. The left hand turn off of Washington onto Lincoln and then the right hand turn onto Maryland is heavily used by automobiles and sharrows may help some of the awkwardness of Lincoln/Maryland intersection when cyclists are present. Cheers!

i can think of a million things, but at this early time my brain is only pulling up one pressing issue. the OB bike path needs to have the flora trimmed... bad! i cant remember exactly which spot, but its early on headed west, way before PCH... maybe in the second or third bridge... anyways, one spot is so bad i had to tuck down all the way to my bars to dodge overgrown bushes/trees overhead.

After all the recent water service construction, I sure hope someone is going to give the pavement on Madison Ave. between Park Bl. and Maryland St. a once over. They totally destroyed that street, but on other parts of my commute (e.g. Sunset Blvd) they have done a much better job of smoothing things back out after similar work.

JSnook:Washington St. at 163 there should be sharrows westbound or some way to indicate cyclists can use the middle lane from Cleveland or Lincoln until past the on-ramp. East/westbound there should be sharrows on the 6th Ave bridge and again eastbound at 9th Ave where traffic exiting 163 enters from the right.

Washington and this particular section of Washington is pretty bad for bikes. There is sooo much traffic going through here. A little birdie told me there's some plans to make this much much better for bicyclists. Unfortunately, who knows when that's going to happen 8-/

PacMule just reminded me of the disappearing bike lane on Miramar Rd. I don't ride Miramar other than a Saturday morning group ride for this very reason. Actually, a couple times I have ridden Miramar when I had daily business in the area. It is horrible. One block bike lane...next block NOTHING...next block bike lane..and so on. Isn't Miramar an official "bikeway"? It's just as ridiculous as Friars Rd.

Possibly unsafe signal: I feel the left turn green from Washington onto Park is too short for a cyclist to get through the intersection without the light turning red on them.

Unresponsive signal: Left turn from Golfcrest to Mission Gorge - light does not recognize cyclists or it's too hard to find the right spot to trigger it. Dangerous because cars travel 55mph on Mission Gorge so you either have to wait for a car to trigger the light or figure out a safe time to run the red (assuming most won't dismount and press the peds 'walk' button)

PacMUle:i can think of a million things, but at this early time my brain is only pulling up one pressing issue. the OB bike path needs to have the flora trimmed... bad! i cant remember exactly which spot, but its early on headed west, way before PCH... maybe in the second or third bridge... anyways, one spot is so bad i had to tuck down all the way to my bars to dodge overgrown bushes/trees overhead.

Pac-- it's westbound just before the Pacific Highway ramps. Pretty dangerous as you have to hit the eastbound lanes to go around. We might have to head down there with clippers.

I'm out of town this weekend, but if the problem persists, I have the tools.

Utah St. (marked as bike route), northbound and southbound, in North Park: Roadway sensors do not activate green light at two intersections: University Ave. and Lincoln St.

Please adjust/repair and mark sensors - or just plain turn off the sensors and put the intersections on auto.

PacMUle:

Cecil:

PacMUle:i can think of a million things, but at this early time my brain is only pulling up one pressing issue. the OB bike path needs to have the flora trimmed... bad! i cant remember exactly which spot, but its early on headed west, way before PCH... maybe in the second or third bridge... anyways, one spot is so bad i had to tuck down all the way to my bars to dodge overgrown bushes/trees overhead.

Pac-- it's westbound just before the Pacific Highway ramps. Pretty dangerous as you have to hit the eastbound lanes to go around. We might have to head down there with clippers.

thanks for clearing up where that is! i would do it but i dont have any gardening stuff. but i will more than likely ride down it sunday if anyone wants to bring some & have a bush trimming party?

Done deal. Just west of PCH.
City Bike Coordinator- Please focus on the things we can't do ourselves. I/we know what it's like to give something to someone who doesn't take care of things. Give us the infrastructure and I, for one, will help take care of it!

BTW... I broke my broom handle today. I'll try to make it out tomorrow to sweep away the debris I couldn't carry off the path.

What do you all think about mapping these requests on to a google map?

I created a map that anyone can collaborate on. I thought it would be nice to visually see the problems and then make updates as they get fixed, like Hans' latest handiwork. I added a test placemarker so you can see what a photo on the map looks like. Tutorial on how to add photos to google map is here:

Cecil:Thanks Hans,

I am riding there tomorrow for the first time since I saw it. I'll stop and clean up a bit too.

Excellent! I really hated leaving the debris in the path where someone could get a flat. I'll be taking a bow-saw and hacking off the thick trunk that was too big for my pruning loppers.

Way to go Hans!

I'm happy to volunteer time and muscle to gorilla fix-it campaigns. Just need the tools. Pershing & Nimitz next?

I would like to suggest changing the downtown recommended cycle route from A St. to C St. and making it into a bike boulevard that stretches from Columbia St. to Park Blvd.

A St. going eastbound has a significant disadvantage of being uphill on a one-way road. It's a needless hill, too, since the crest doesn't connect to anything. You still have to go downhill then back uphill to connect to Park Blvd. Once you get to 10th Ave., you then have to deal with cars exiting and entering the 163, all jockeying for lanes and trying to make sense of the unclear signage for which lane goes to what connecting road. As is usual for three-lane one-way roads in San Diego, cars travel much faster than the speed limit, and race to get through all the timed lights, making it uncomfortable to be a cyclist riding your way up the incline.

C St. is discontinuous from Columbia St. to Park Blvd. which makes it undesirable as an automotive corridor. This seems like an ideal place to a) make a continuous path by adding cycletracks in the blocks that don't have lanes for vehicle traffic (specifically near Civic Center); and b) make a bike boulevard that allows bikes to pass through the entire length while preventing cars from going more than a block or two (that's what A St., B St., and Broadway should be for).

It's obvious that a desired cycle path is along this street, partly through observation, but mostly because there are signs prohibiting sidewalk riding in several locations that have no travel lanes. Clearly, bikes WANT to use this street, but legally can't. Another significant advantage is that it's flat along the same parallel as A St. No climb equals smoother riding.

I tell you, I'm getting REALLY tired of getting honked at, swerved at, and yelled at, while legally riding on A St. which has sharrows and bike route signs along its length. The drivers clearly aren't interested in "getting educated" about bicycle rights and respect on this corridor. Let's give up on A St. and figure out how to make C St. better.

billd:I don't know how you can possibly make C Street better. It's sidewalk until you get past 6th. There are the trolley stops. It's not going to be easy.

So you've told us in detail why you think C would be unsuitable as a "bike boulevard". Fine: In the interests of staying constructive - which is the whole idea of this thread - now tell us where exactly in this area you think the bike boulevard should be located.

If you don't want them at all, just come clean and tell us you don't - in which case you can spare yourself the effort of arguing against proposals based on minute details on why "it won't be easy" in any particular location, and instead just say "no". We'll get it.

It's sidewalk until you get past 6th. There are the trolley stops.

Make a multi-use path out of the sidewalk. No reason it can't become that by modifying the curbs. Every "bike path" in the city is really a multi-use path, so there's plenty of precedent.

I, too, drop down to C St. at 6th, but there's two issues with that: 1) the bike route signage points you up A St., not down to C St. The suggested route needs to be changed; 2) C St. past 6th can be improved by making it a bike boulevard that prevents cars from going more than a block or two. This would eliminate cars bottling up behind a cyclist on a one-lane road. They get frustrated because they legally can't cross the double yellow and drive on the trolley tracks, and the roadway isn't wide enough to share.

I never got harassed on A St.

It's great that you don't get harrassed. Really. I'm happy that you're doing swell when you ride there. But just because it doesn't happen to you, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. You admit that you don't ride that street much. So why would you oppose improvements suggested by someone who does ride it on a regular basis?

I've never been mugged. I've never had a bottle thrown at me while biking, either. I've never had someone get out of their vehicle to challenge me. Of course, some people get into so many situations and are afraid enough that they carry pepper spray, right? So should I tell those people that they have no reason to carry self-defense because it's never happened to me?

Island is too far south to work as a substitute for A or C, but it will be a great bike boulevard someday (if we can just get those pesky stop signs turned the right way...)

Most of C has one traffic lane, either eastbound or westbound. The easiest bike boulevard solution is to convert that lane to a bike path, and make it two directions for bikes. I'm not sure what to do about the bottleneck around 2nd, but there might be a solution.

Same solution would work well for Park, which is one lane southbound but could be a two-way bike facility to connect City College to the new library - just sayin

Kathy,

I like your suggestion better than mine, since I was just thinking one-way traffic. The only obstacle I see is delivery access for businesses along that corridor. They may be less receptive if that is their only access. I'm unclear if they have access from the numbered avenues.

Riding the various trains along the California coast, bike paths are a frequent complimentary feature to rails. I like the idea of following the trolley along C and down Park. Auto traffic isn't missing anything by losing those one-lane one-way streets, since the entire downtown is parallel paths.

As for upgrades to Island, I like what they've done in Monterey to streets like this in residential neighborhoods. They've managed to drop a roundabout with aesthetic appeal into an existing intersection. Imagine the appeal of little islands on Island! Then we could tell out-of-towners that's how the street got its name. Stop signs are fascist. Yield signs are liberal.

srvienna,

I get what you're saying about semantics, because that's what is understood by planners, engineers, and contractors. I think Kathy was not suggesting a "boulevard" so much as a class 1 bike path.

Island would be much easier to convert. There is far less pedestrian traffic and not anything I can think of that's particularly difficult to displace; especially compared to the trolley stops. There's also less traffic on the cross streets relative to C, which has enormous traffic on the cross streets.

The main down side, as Kathy pointed out, is that it's a bit far south.

Maybe E?

My opinion on C over E Street is simply based upon Broadway and the transit connections. If C were bikeable from Sante Fe Depot (or American Plaza) to Park, it keeps you from having to drop down to E and crossing Broadway if you used transit to get downtown. This is partly selfish, since I use Amtrak/Coaster/Trolley enough to make this a desirable route for me.

East-west routes in downtown just have so many issues. The MLK Promenade has installed iron gates to make it non-contiguous, and placed "No Biking" signs in random areas. Island has the stop signs every block. C and E are blocked by the Civic Center and Horton Plaza, respectively. A Street is an auto corridor and uphill. Even going all the way down to the marina causes problems, since Seaport Village bans bikes and the one bike lane behind the Convention Center is a cruel joke. I'd really like to see what Kathy suggests, one route north and one route south of Broadway. The grid absorbs so much auto traffic that those two streets are immaterial to cars. Traffic downtown really isn't that bad for inside a major city, but it simply doesn't make allowances for biking.

Really, I'd like to see some experiments from the city in the downtown area beyond painting shared lane markings. Vancouver, Portland, and Los Angeles all have broken the ice for bike-friendly street projects, and I'd be behind anyone who is willing to commit to bolder planning.