Bicyclists and business owners are at odds over the San Diego Association of Government’s bike lane plans for University Avenue.
A group of bike riders are asking for dedicated bike lanes, while business owners are worried about customer parking.
About 30 bicycle riders rallied outside SANDAG’s Transportation Committee meeting on how to construct part of a $40 million bike lane project. The Uptown Project includes plans to create bike lanes on University Avenue from Normal Street to Washington Avenue.
Originally, the plan was to construct bike lanes with physical barriers between riders are cars.
Benjamin Nicholls, a member of the Hillcrest Business Association, said SANDAG’s original plan would have hurt parking.
“SANDAG’s old plan took out about 90 parking spaces, a third of the parking spaces on University Avenue, and that’s unacceptable,” Nicholls said. “Everybody knows that parking is tough in Uptown.”
The new plan is to have bicyclists share the road with drivers along University Avenue. San Diego Bicycle Coalition executive director Andy Hanshaw said the new plan ignores one of San Diego’s most dangerous roads.
“They’re leaving out the most dangerous corridor in this project for concerns over some of those things that I think can be resolved with more community dialogue,” Hanshaw said.
The project is part of a long-term plan to develop a regional bike system by the year 2050. Proponents of the plan are working to create bicycle corridors and programs to make riding a bike convenient transportation.
