SAN DIEGO — After days of protest from residents in Mira Mesa over controversial shared bike lanes, the city of San Diego began preparations to return Gold Coast Drive to the way it was before. On Monday, April 11, the city posted "No Parking" signs informing people not to park on the street ahead of the re-striping that's expected to take place on Thursday.
On Friday, Mayor Todd Gloria announced the city would remove the single lane down the center of the road for traffic going both directions, and replace it with a double yellow line. It will remove the advisory bike lanes.
"There was no community outreach, there was no transparency, and for that we missed the mark, it's a mistake, that's why we're undoing it," said Mayor Gloria.
He went door to door Friday morning, talking to neighbors and passing out fliers, informing them the road would return to normal.
"I'm happy it's going back," said resident Dawn Dornberg. "I was really surprised, I didn't expect it to happen so soon its a win, its nice."
However, Mayor Gloria made it clear that he believes advisory bike lanes will be a part of San Diego in the future.
"I think it's not likely to be on [the same stretch of Gold Coast Drive], but it will appear in other parts of the city," said Mayor Gloria. "The difference will be that we'll inform the community in advance, we'll work with them to see if this is the appropriate treatment for that particular stretch of land."
Earlier this week CBS 8 went out to Gold Coast Drive to get answers. We found out that even city councilmembers didn’t know what was happening. “We thought it was a mistake by the striping crew,” said Councilman Chris Cate who represents the area.
“I have never seen these lanes in my life. I have never been briefed on it, told about it," Cate said.
CBS 8 is working for you, so we kept digging to find out why the lanes showed up without warning.
What CBS 8 discovered is that the City's transportation department was in charge of the project.
The city selected Mira Mesa for its initial installment of advisory bike lanes, where drivers traveling in opposite directions on Gold Coast Drive share a single, center lane.
“Gold Coast in Mira Mesa is an identified bike route,” said city’s transportation department manager, Everett Hauser during the 2021 meeting.
The advisory bike lanes were installed on Gold Coast Drive, apparently, with no public comment and no public vote.
CBS 8 asked a city spokesperson how someone could drop the ball on something as important as notifying neighbors that drivers will suddenly being heading straight at each other. “You're right,” said Jose Ysea. “It's a major miscommunication.”
Ysea says the transportation department was supposed to notify residents before the striping happened, but somehow that slipped through the cracks.
Now they're putting up signs, but those are confusing too. Neighbors fear someone is going to get seriously hurt. “I almost got hit yesterday,” said Mike Damron, who has lived in the area for 40 years. “I was going down toward the 7-Eleven and a guy fame speeding down the middle and I actually had to turn right away just to avoid getting hit.”
The City says more of these advisory bike lanes are coming, but they didn’t say where or when.
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