SANDAG, San Diego County's transportation planning agency, recently returned $17.6 million in competitive state grant funding for four bike and pedestrian safety projects.
The projects in Vista, North Park, Barrio Logan, Old Town and Mission Hills have been planned for more than a decade as part of SANDAG's Bike Early Action Program. The program has long been plagued with delays and cost overruns.
"Some of these projects are approaching 10 years of delay," said Ian Hembree, advocacy and community manager for the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition. "The delay will only continue if SANDAG is going to give the money back and have no other plan for filling that gap."
The grants that were returned came from the state's Active Transportation Program, which awards funding to projects that increase biking and walking to lower greenhouse gas emissions and improve public health.
SANDAG staffers have said in public meetings that construction costs have risen since the grants were awarded, and that the agency was unable to meet the grant deadlines.
"We're not abandoning the projects, we're just reanalyzing them," SANDAG principal project manager Omar Atayee told the agency's Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee on Sept. 9. "And by returning the funds, we can go back with a more holistic and accurate forecast of the costs and try to compete for future funding to deliver those projects, because they're still a priority for us."
SANDAG spokesperson Jessica Gonzalez told KPBS the agency did not submit any applications in this year's funding cycle of the Active Transportation Program.
"We anticipate we will be prepared to submit projects for cycle 9 (in 2028)," Gonzalez said.
One of the projects that lost funding is the Robinson Bikeway, which would build a bike and pedestrian bridge over a small canyon on Robinson Avenue in North Park. Without the bridge, cyclists traveling from parts of North Park to Hillcrest have to share a lane with cars on a high-speed, uphill stretch of University Avenue.
SANDAG also returned grant funding for the Mission Hills and Old Town Bikeways, the Vista section of the Inland Rail Trail and the Barrio Logan section of the Bayshore Bikeway.
San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who sits on SANDAG's Transportation Committee, said he agrees with the frustration of bike advocates.
"Any time anything is delayed, I get worried that it's going to start to cost even more," Elo-Rivera said. "And I will continue to say we need to kind of step back and reevaluate how we're talking about bike projects in general. They're not bike projects. They are road safety improvement projects that include a bike safety component."
