It is time that the city spend the $10 million it collected from SeaWorld for traffic mitigation. This issue affects the communities of Point Loma, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and Tecolote Canyon. I would attend all the meetings and complain about the added traffic when SeaWorld was attempting to expand and remove some of the height restrictions around 2000. I even tore its traffic study apart in the comments in the environmental impact report (EIR). On the day of the vote, surprising everybody, they agreed to donate $10 million over five years for traffic mitigation. So where are the projects? I went down and complained at City Council public comments a few years ago. I got a call from somebody high up in the Engineering Department. Then I met with two staffers about the projects. One was Nituh Aberra. The staffers basically told me nothing was going to be done for many, many years. They were going to do an EIR at the bridge. Then they said they were thinking of expanding the bridge to three lanes each way at a cost of $40 million to $50 million. Where the hell are they going to come up with that money? They were supposed to expand the bridge over the San Diego River on Ingraham Street/Sports Arena Boulevard in 1999. Then it was 2004, then 2009, now 2015. That intersection, bridge and traffic are a mess. My solution would be to spend the $10 million now on the Sea World Drive/I-5 area. First, create a right-turn pocket lane coming out of Tecolote Canyon onto I-5 north. Then keep the current bridge on the exit lane on the I-5 heading north. You could just put dirt between the bridge and the signal light to create two left-turn lanes and one right-turn lane. Then, if any money is left over, add another lane to the I-5 north exit turnoff so you could have three lanes: one heading toward SeaWorld, another toward Tecolote Canyon and the middle would have the option to go either way. All of the improvements would make the total signal cycles a lot faster, thus reducing the backup in traffic. The public does not know that the money is being used for other projects. Even though construction costs are going down, inflation is eating away the 2000 value. The city never required that SeaWorld come up with any traffic mitigation. The public gets the city money and they (the city) spend it on some other area. Wrong. Wrong.






