SAN DIEGO — CBS 8 is working to get answers to questions about the new advisory bike lanes recently installed in Mira Mesa.
Public backlash has caused the city to temporarily stop installing the design, which requires drivers to share a center lane.
The idea for advisory bike lanes originated at San Diego Mobility Board meetings in May, and again in June of 2021.
“This is just one example of an advisory bike lane that will be implemented on Hancock Street,” the city’s transportation department manager, Everett Hauser, told board members.
Hauser explained advisory bike lanes have been used in Europe for years, and could be deployed in San Diego on Hancock Street near the airport.
“Is Hancock one way or two way for cars?” board member Serge Issakov asked.
“It’s two way,” Hauser responded.
“Okay, so if the cars are coming at each other, they each have to slide into the bike lane shoulder on both sides?” Issakov asked.
“Correct,” Hauser said.
Instead of Hancock Street, 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 Hauser during the 2021 meeting.
The advisory bike lanes were installed on Gold Coast Drive, apparently, with no public comment and no public vote.
Nicole Burgess sits on the city’s Mobility Board. She said the traffic department presented the bike lane proposal during a non-action, informational staff report.
“They are the traffic engineers, as taxpayers we're paying them to make the correct decisions. I believe that the Mobility Board believed that this was a good-intended direction,” said Burgess, who also is the founder of BikeWalk San Diego and a bicycling enthusiast.
She believes advisory bike lanes will make cars go slower, reduce crashes, and drivers will learn to yield right of way.
“If we rant and rave over something that's trying to make our city safer and our neighborhoods quieter and calmer, we got some problems right?” she said.
“This is something super minor. So, if we can't deal with this, you better just put your seat belts on and hold on cause we're in for a whole lot worse than a little paint on the ground, and a little bit of accepting that other people are going to be on the road, and that we're actually going to enjoy a bike ride next to a person that's in a car,” said Burgess.
Neighbors in Mira Mesa told CBS 8 they were worried that the shared center lane could lead to head-on collisions, especially at night.
CBS 8 reached out to the city of San Diego inquiring why the new bike lanes were never put to a vote in a public meeting. So far, we have not heard back.
Earlier in the week, San Diego’s transportation department director, Jorge Riveros, apologized to neighbors in Mira Mesa for a lack of public outreach to educate drivers on how to navigate the new bike lanes.
Oceanside's Manufactured Home Fair Practices Commission met Thursday night at 6 p.m., to watch the full meeting visit here.
WATCH RELATED: San Diego’s Mobility Board never voted on new bike lanes (April 2022)