Bird Rock residents flocked to the area’s only set of stairs at PB Point that lead to their beaches Tuesday after years of stepping over a warning chain, then climbing down the crumbling cement steps that revealed rebar. Officials fixed the cement stairway two weeks ago.
The entrance to Bird Rock beaches “” at Bird Rock’s southern edge with Pacific Beach, located at Linda Way and Sea Ridge Drive “” has been closed for years, said resident Kristen McCabe. Despite the chain, residents continued to use the crumbling steps, she said.
“It was a total disaster area,” McCabe said. “People were using them anyway.”
The area, rich with tide pools, lured surfers carrying their boards and people carrying buckets who continued to walk down the deteriorating steps, McCabe said.
“It took a long time to get them to fix them, but the actual repair was quick,” she said.
Just days after members of the Bird Rock Community Council sent a plea to local citizens and the City of San Diego to repair the dilapidated stairway, BRCC President Joe LaCava said the city responded and fixed the steps.
The BRCC was working with Scott Peters’ office to make the stairs safe, LaCava said. With a lot of persistence on their part, the stairs were fixed, he said.
“The fix happened very fast. I heard they were working on solutions,” LaCava said.
Part of the reason the city finally responded is because summer was approaching, LaCava said.
“Part of it is because we’re in June,” he said. “Some residents have been working on [the issue] since the chain went up.”
Although the city temporarily fixed the cement, LaCava said the board is continuing its efforts to work on a safe, effective solution. Saltwater degrades concrete, he said.
“They patched the concrete stairs themselves,” LaCava said. “They put a temporary patch on the broken concrete that was exposed. It’s not permanent, and there needs to be a permanent solution.”
LaCava called this a Band-Aid fix but said he’s encouraged that the city responded, especially because it is summertime.
Residents like McCabe can continue using the stairway, which she said is the only beach-access stairway in Bird Rock.
“It takes me about two minutes to get past the rocks and then I can go running,” McCabe said.