SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has announced that the city will be re-painting a Mira Mesa street back to a normal layout after a brand new design was installed, causing confusion.
The new street design features one single lane down the center of the street that is shared by cars going both directions. There are two bike lanes on the edge of the street. When two cars pass each other, they move into the bike lanes, yielding to bikes. Many residents complained that the city did not communicate to them that this change was coming and are worried about safety because of the unique design.
“Kind of a mess, big change, no one was expecting it,” said neighbor Maja Walker.
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Friday, Mayor Todd Gloria went door-to-door in the neighborhood to speak with residents, apologizing for the lack of information and telling them the street would be re-painted back to normal within the next week.
“Because it’s unique, the first-ever in our city, we owed it to the community to spend time with it, explain what was going to happen, how this works. That failure is something I regret, it’s something we’re going to fix,” said Mayor Gloria.
He said all planned installations of this design throughout the city will be paused until proper education can take place. He added that the city believes this design can be beneficial and they will consider it moving forward in other neighborhoods, but promised to communicate before anything is implemented.
“I think it’s unlikely to be on this particular street, but it will appear in other parts of the city. The difference will be that we will inform the community in advance, we will work with them hand in hand to make sure this is the appropriate treatment for that particular stretch of land,” he said.
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When asked how this miscommunication took place, he said there were already plans to re-pave the road, and designers thought it would be beneficial to simultaneously implement the redesign.
“Why it got deployed now is we were going to re-pave the street. We’ve generally have been trying to be efficient with your tax dollars and say that when we have workers out paving the streets, let’s install these facilities at the same time,” he said, adding that he’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Mayor Gloria said he and city leaders believe there can be benefits to this design, as long as there is also education. He said they’re seeking out ways to encourage biking, which is part of their Climate Action Plan. Plus, this design also preserves parking. Also, the new layout causes people to pause and slow down, which can help with people speeding down residential roads.
