At its March meeting, La Jolla’s Traffic & Transportation (TNT) board approved a September block party, postponed final consideration of converting a commercial loading zone into public parking and heard about a pilot city electrical vehicle car share program.
La Jolla’s TNT board focuses on traffic and transportation, making recommendations to the La Jolla Community Planning Association (LJCPA), an advisory group making land-use recommendations to the city.
Besides LJCPA, the TNT board has representatives from La Jolla Town Council, Promote La Jolla Business Improvement District (BID), La Jolla Shores Association and Bird Rock Community Council.
TNT’s board unanimously approved a street closure request by Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church to host “So Fine on Kline,” a fundraising street festival to be held Saturday, Sept. 20.
“There were no problems with the first Kline fall festival held last year,” said Tresha Souza representing the church. Souza added the size of this year’s event has been downsized.
“Last year it was held from Herschel to Ivanhoe avenues, and it was too much to bite off,” she said. “This year, it will be smaller, held between Herschel and Girard avenues.”
Souza said the block party event, which has a beer garden, will go from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., with the beer garden closing at 7 p.m.
Souza also asked that the street be closed off the night before the event on Friday starting at 6 p.m. to facilitate set-up. After the TNT board pointed out 6 p.m. was too early to close the street on a Friday, a comprise time of 7 p.m. to close the street off was agreed upon.
TNT chair Todd Lesser introduced a request from La Jolla Elementary School principal Donna Tripi to remove a commercial loading zone at 7414 Herschel Ave. and convert it for parking.
“Tripi said those parking spaces are really not used throughout the day and that it would be nice to turn those into all-day parking so everyone can use them,” Lesser said.
Lesser’s suggestion met with resistance from other board members, who felt the issue needed to be more thoroughly vetted.
“We want people to be good neighbors. That’s our goal,” noted TNT board member Tom Brady. “We really need to do a little bit of work and get the neighbors to agree to this.”
“My only real question is is more parking needed in the area or not,” said TNT board member John Kassar.
The board agreed to postpone final consideration of the proposed parking change until its May meeting.
Jacques Chirazi, program manager for Clean Tech initiative for the city of San Diego, which promotes environmentally sustainable transportation, gave a presentation on a pilot electrical vehicle car share program.
“The main goal is to take cars off the road, having people share vehicles and reduce long trips, miles traveled, traffic congestion and greenhouse gases,” Chirazi said, adding the electrical vehicle car share program, in effect since October 2011 in downtown and uptown San Diego, is expected to eventually be expanded citywide including the beach areas.
“Another goal of the program is to provide greater access to businesses and boost tourism,” Chirazi added.
The pilot program is being conducted through Car2go, providing a fleet of all-electric vehicles allowing car sharing and part-time rentals. Car sharing provides a neighborhood-based fleet of vehicles available to members for a set rate. Car sharing offers environmental, economic and transportation system benefits providing an affordable alternative, taking an average of 15 private vehicles off the road, resulting in reduced congestion, vehicle emissions, energy consumption and parking demand.
For more information about TNT, call (619) 364-4750 or email [email protected].