SAN DIEGO — The City of San Diego project cut down four lanes of traffic to two lanes with a buffered bike lane and room for parking on a half-mile stretch of Mission Village Drive near Snapdragon Stadium.
The move is frustrating some of the people living in this area.
“It makes me upset, it’s a drag. I think we’ve been hard done by our politicians. For their lack of foresight, we are going to be forced to deal this this for decades to come,” said Michael Lenny, resident.
The City of San Diego said the buffered lanes were needed after hearing complaints from parents of students at nearby Taft elementary school.
“I see so much congestion on an average day," said Dennis Decot.
Decot has lived in Serra Mesa for ten years and said the bike lanes will make things worse. He showed us a recent picture of the traffic on Mission Village Drive. But it’s that traffic that makes cyclists feel safer with the buffered bike lane.
“Anytime that you’re sharing the road with cars, you always need to be alert, so having that extra couple of feet between you and the car next to you just adds an extra layer of safety," said Sean Davis, Resident.
Debbie Blanchard also calls herself a cyclist and said she's more concerned about traffic jams than getting hit riding her bike.
“I’m a cyclist, I go cycling here. I’ve never felt unsafe and I just know that with the stadium still under construction and not yet complete, there are more housing developments that are going to be coming and the development they’ve done in Mission Valley traffic has increased here," said Blanchard, resident.
CBS 8 reached out to Councilmember Raul Campillo’s office and in a statement he said, “Providing a safe bike lane while not removing any vehicular parking will make our streets safer for all while managing residents ’quality of life.”
He went on to say the city made the move after thorough traffic engineering studies.
But with more development taking place in the area, those against the bike lanes say this was not a good plan.
People will get more frustrated, there will be more accidents here and if you go back to the safety issue…. how much more safer are you making it be if you have aggressive driving because now everyone is very frustrated that you’re doing the slow crawl from Serra Mesa to Mission Valley," said Decot.
Some of the residents did reach out to Campillo’s office and said they are willing to come out here and talk with residents sometime next week.
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