The San Diego Leaders Who Sacrificed People for Parking

Earlier this year a street safety plan for Hillcrest and other San Diego neighborhoods was derailed after NIMBYs complained about the loss of curbside parking.

The plan was prompted to prevent incidents like the 2012 crash when a driver hit a mother and her 3-year-old daughter in a Hillcrest crosswalk at an intersection with a history of crashes. Bike San Diego says such collisions are common, and that those who worked to stop the Uptown Bike Project, and the officials who placated them, are directly responsible.

BikeSD lays out a seven-point plan to make streets safer in Hillcrest and San Diego at large. The group's recommendations include reducing speed limits to 20 miles per hour and treating people who walk and bike as citizens, rather than “special interests.”

“We need to stop rationalizing for a system that treats the hospitalization of a 3-year old child as a cost of doing business and worth the trade-off for the storage of private vehicles in our public space,” says BikeSD. “To those that worked so effectively behind the scenes to thwart the SANDAG Uptown bike project: blood is, and will continue to be, on your hands.”

Elsewhere on the Network today: BikeWalkLee posts a column on how auto advertising promotes traffic violence; Seattle Transit Blog says King County Metro has apologized for addressing bus riders like suspects; and Washington Bikes points out that the U.S. has a low standard for "bike-friendliness."