NATIONAL CITY, Calif. — The National City City Council is considering a plan to add more bike lanes to the streets and roadways throughout the city. The plan would add 4 miles of Class II bike lanes, in addition to many more miles of other types of bikeways.
“For me, it’s more exercise or for seniors who want to have a safe road for bikers, it’s really good,” said Bert Gillego, a cyclist who has lived in National City for 30 years.
He thinks adding more bike lanes would make getting around town easier and safer for cyclists like him.
“Yeah, pretty good,” said Gillego. “You can put them around San Diego County with the bike lanes, that’s fine, it’s good.”
The new bicycle master plan is looking to expand and improve National City’s existing bikeway network by filling in gaps and making the area more bikeable altogether.
“Basically, this whole commuting idea and everything tied together and that’s all nice and good, particularly if you’re dealing with an Otay Ranch, which is like a big sandbox that you get to play Sim City with. If you’re talking about an older community like ours, that’s a world of difference,” said Ron Morrison, Mayor of National City.
He thinks some bike lanes are necessary, but he doesn’t think the roadways need to be saturated with too many of them.
“The question is how many of these do we really need and do they need to be out on every street? No. Do we a couple of north-south? Do we need a couple of east-west? Ok, let’s do that,” said Mayor Morrison. “We could use a few and I think they could be strategically put, but this idea, ‘Well, there’s money for it, so let’s do it,’ and at the same time, we’re taking away all the parking.”
National City already has more than 12 miles of Class II bike lanes on streets like E 18th Street, for example, but the new plan would add bike lanes to other roads like 24th Street.
The solid lines on this map show existing bikeways and the dotted lines represent where city staff wants to add more.
“I think we need to have some for those who want to use bikes and want to use it to get to certain areas. You want to make sure you have an east-west to get over to Harbor Drive, that takes you down to downtown, those types of things. But we don’t need one on every arterial on every street and that’s what’s going to have to be looked at,” said Morrison.
City staff is presenting the updated bicycle master plan at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall. The item is for discussion only, but the plan may be brought back to the council sometime in the near future for an actual vote.
Encouraging cycling and helping community members feel safe was a major topic of discussion during the meeting.
"I know from personal experience," said councilmember Marcus Bush. "My wife got hit on a bike last year just south of National City."
City councilmember Marcus Bush shared his family's personal story. He says his wife was struck in an area with no protected bike lanes.
"My wife we found out she was pregnant because she got hit by the car and went to the hospital. We could have lost her, we could have lost my child," he said.
The lead traffic engineer for the project, Ryan Wipple, says adding more bike lanes would improve air quality, reduce green house gas emissions and can even improve mental health. He says there's evidence bike lanes can encourage business development in downtown areas.
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