By Ken Williams | Editor

Is walkability a good thing for North Park? Should the community be more accommodating of buses and bicycles? Is parking more important than safer accessibility for pedestrians and bicyclists? What’s good for local businesses?

These questions and more were debated June 24 during a public forum hosted by the North Park Community Association at the Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Boulevard. About 50 people heard a panel of experts talk about the issues and participated in a question-and-answer session.

Maya Rosas, policy assistant at Circulate San Diego, urged more support for alternative methods of transportation and shared how she walks or takes the bus from Golden Hill to Downtown to get to work.

Rosas informed the crowd that Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman have endorsed Circulate San Diego’s newly released Vision Zero plan (read it at tinyurl.com/njw6j7k) that seeks to eliminate all traffic deaths in America’s Finest City in the next decade.

“We have this crazy idea to end all traffic deaths by 2025,” she said.

Circulate San Diego has identified the eight most deadly traffic corridors in the city, and two of them are in the North Park area: University Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard.

Panelists and the audience agreed those two major east-west streets are dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists, and discussed possible solutions.

Adrian Granda, a community representative for Councilmember Todd Gloria whose district includes North Park, said “walkability is a quality of life issue.” He said millennials, especially, are concerned about this because they want to live in urban areas of city and be within walking or biking distance of the businesses they patronize. North Park, hailed as a hipster neighborhood by a number of national publications, has become the craft beer capital of San Diego and home to numerous restaurants and bars as well as an arts hub for Uptown.

Granda said there was a need for more pop-outs and traffic-calming solutions to “scale down” the neighborhood streets. These solutions tend to slow down traffic, thus making it safer for walking and biking.

Gloria’s community rep noted that the city now has 10 employees dedicated to bicycle improvements and a new crosswalk policy that has been updated and streamlined to expedite the approval process.

Granda hailed North Parkers for being “forward thinkers by supporting mixed-use projects and density when proposed in the right locations” near transit hubs or bus stops.

“The city is failing on infrastructure,” he said, noting that the mayor is ramping up the city budget to fix potholes and broken sidewalks. Granda said there is an enormous shortfall in the budget to pay for all the infrastructure upgrades that are needed, and the voters will be asked how they would like to pay for them.

Bill Christiansen, a fourth-generation San Diegan, is a public policy professional who said he is an avid pedestrian who also loves his car. He said North Park needed more parking to make it more convenient for visitors who flock to the community, especially on weekends.

Granda called parking a “huge issue” in North Park, but stopped short of endorsing the building of more public parking garages. He said prioritizing parking would risk making North Park less walkable.

He said more practical solutions would be to convert parallel parking spots into angled parking, which will add more spots and narrow streets — another traffic-calming solution because drivers would likely slow down as a result.

Joanne Sherif, owner of Cardamom Cafe and Bakery near the corner of 30th and Upas streets, said she lives five blocks from work and likes to walk everywhere. She said a large number of her customers are pedestrians, yet some drive from as far away as Coronado to buy baked goods. She has 15 parking spots behind her business.

Sherif said she wouldn’t mind trading in the two metered parking spots in front of Cardamom to add a parklet, because she said it would be an asset to the neighborhood and help calm down the busy intersection that she calls “dangerous” to pedestrians.

Christiansen said drivers need to have a place to park before they could walk, and he said there needed to be a safe way to get where they wanted to go. “Safety is one of the biggest issues,” he added.

One audience member who identified herself as a single woman said she felt unsafe walking after dark because of the lack of street lighting on many residential streets in her neighborhood.

Rosas agreed that “street lighting is spotty” in many areas and talked about the need for “eyes on the street.” Audience members noted the rash of attacks on women after dark last year (a suspect was eventually arrested) and the recent hold-ups at gunpoint by three young men who preyed on people walking in alleys at night (a police officer told the crowd that the young men are suspected of committing multiple crimes across the city).

All agreed that North Park should be friendly to bicyclists and pedestrians.

“Walkability is so important in a neighborhood like this,” Granda said.

The North Park Community Association is all about increased dialog, interaction and community in North Park. Visit northparksd.org for more information.

—Ken Williams is editor of Uptown News and Mission Valley News and can be reached at [email protected] or at 619-961-1952.