The Encinitas City Council voted in February to remove a protected bike lane on Santa Fe Drive in front of San Dieguito Academy High School.
But language included in the state’s budget implementation bill would prevent the city from modifying this bike lane for five years. It would also make the city return more than $3 million in state funds if they choose to remove the bike lane for 10 years after that.
Now, the city is asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to line-item veto that piece of the budget bill. The City Council approved the request Wednesday night.
The protected lanes on Santa Fe Drive were completed in 2025 for $4.15 million, according to the city’s project timeline. State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, secured $3.09 million in state funds in July of 2023 to complete construction.
“I was able to get money in the state budget in 2023,” Sen. Blakespear said. “And then the project was built, and now there's a proposal to go backward and make it less safe.”
Community pushback, primarily against the reverse-angle parking spots, led the city to pause the rest of the proposed improvements to the Santa Fe Drive corridor and reassess the configuration of the bike lane that was already built.
Mayor Bruce Ehlers said at the time the configuration was causing confusion among drivers who weren’t used to reverse-angle parking; and that the resulting traffic jams could block first responders.
“Emergency vehicles cannot pass during peak periods,” Ehlers said. “There’s no place to pull over. That’s why we (want to) go to the buffered bike lanes, because then at least cars can pull over, make room for emergency vehicles, and we can get people to the hospital.”
He also argued that the protected lane on the south side of the road was actually less safe than the unprotected, “buffered” Class II painted bike lane that the city chose for its redesign.
“We've had fatalities in Encinitas due to right hooks,” Ehlers said. “And what I mean by a right hook is where the car wants to make a right turn. And rather than pulling over and blocking the bike path, which is what they should do, they should take control of the interference — the striped area, the green-white stripe area. They should take control so the bicycle stays behind him.”
But local bike advocates disagreed with his assessment, and said the protected lanes are the safest option for riders.
“We know that for the vast majority of users, the (ages) 8 to 80 crew, which is, you know, kids as young as 8, adults as old as 80, to make them feel protected and comfortable while riding on our busy city streets,” Aaron Hebshi with Strong Towns Encinitas said. “They prefer protection and separation, and that's best done with actual separation, as in, a concrete barrier.”
Ultimately, the City Council approved a redesign expected to cost between $3.4 and $3.6 million. Sen. Blakespear is determined to prevent that from happening.
“It will cost many millions of dollars to take it out and put in a painted white bicycle lane instead,” Blakespear said. “And that money can be spent for all sorts of important things.”
Earlier this year, Blakespear introduced a state bill that would have prohibited any modifications to state funded bike lanes that would reduce safety for 20 years after completion of said bike lane.
That bill passed the state Senate but didn’t meet the Aug. 31 deadline for approval in the Assembly.
But a last-minute change to the state’s budget trailer bill included a specific prohibition on modifications to the Santa Fe Drive bike lanes.
Budget trailer bills help clarify how to implement previous state budgets, as explained by the California Budget and Policy Center.
Senate Bill 144, this year’s trailer bill, makes hundreds of updates to allocations from previous budget bills passed from 2022 to 2025. It was passed by the legislature and is on the governor’s desk.
One item in that bill specifically prohibits the City of Encinitas from removing or modifying the protected bike lane on Santa Fe Drive for five years.
Then, for the next 10 years, the city would have to return $3.09 million that was originally allocated for the project and prove that a redesign would be safer for non-drivers if they wanted to proceed with any modifications.
“What is on the table now is … terms that are attached to the grant that require that the project stay in for five years,” Blakespear said. “And then if it's taken out between five years and 15 years, that the money would have to be returned to the state, and there would have to be proof that the project is as safe for nonmotorized users.”
Back in March, Councilmember Joy Lyndes, the lone vote against the redesign, said most people she heard from still supported the protected lane.
At Wednesday’s city council meeting, Lyndes once again expressed her opposition to the redesign of the bike lane, and was the lone vote against the City Council’s request.
“There is no way that moving the bicycles from a separated bike lane, separated from traffic, to right next to traffic, and also widening the travel lane, makes bicyclists safer,” Lyndes said at the meeting.
Mayor Ehlers disagreed, citing fatalities that occurred in previous years.
“They are not necessarily safer,” Ehlers said. “And this is about overall safety. It's about the overall safety of allowing during peak traffic, getting ambulances to our hospital, which is right down the street. It's about not squeezing cars so much that they run into things, run into people on diagonal. It's about people getting out of the crazy diagonal parking.”
If Gov. Newsom signs the bill by Sept. 30, it would immediately take effect and block the city from proceeding with their modifications.
The Encinitas City Council voted 4-1 to send a request to Newsom asking him to line-item veto this part of the bill and allow their modifications to continue.
Encinitas is not the only city in San Diego County that has walked back bike safety improvements.
In July, the Vista City Council voted to remove physical barriers from city bike corridors just months after installing them, citing driver complaints.
In 2022, the city of San Diego also chose to remove so-called “advisory” bike lanes in Mira Mesa that received backlash from neighborhood residents.
And just recently the U.S. Department of Transportation stripped bike lanes and speed cameras, among other safety features, from a list of “Proven Safety Countermeasures.”
