City officials are looking for up to a dozen or so Peninsula community members to sit on another task force that would help analyze the problematic traffic along Rosecrans Street.
The city plans to launch the Rosecrans Corridor Study, an 18-month, $360,000 project that would look for ways to improve transportation along the Rosecrans Street corridor extending from Interstate 8 south to Naval Base Point Loma, said Julio Fuentes, a senior traffic engineer with the city.
“We just know that [the corridor] needs to be studied and it needs to be improved,” he said. “That’s why we applied for grants.”
The grant money comes from a $300,000 grant from the California Transportation Department to be augmented by $60,000 from the city, Fuentes said.
To make use of that money, Fuentes is asking for volunteers from various community organizations to form a task force to help select a consultant who would conduct the study and report back to the city.
Two board members from the Peninsula Community Planning Board stepped forward Dec. 20 as Fuentes made his presentation during the PCPB meeting.
Fuentes, however, said he would like to include members from the Midway Planning group and the Old Town Chamber of Commerce and various other planning organizations from the Peninsula and meet with them to get more volunteers, he said.
The two representatives from the PCPB are Gary Halbert, former development services director for the city, and Maggie Valentine, a 17-year Point Loma resident and native San Diegan. Valentine has been active in traffic issues involving the Peninsula community since the beginning stages of the Liberty Station Promenade.
Valentine lives on Voltaire Street near Rosecrans Street and said someone familiar with all the traffic issues on Rosecrans would be a good suit for the task force.
She said the combination of Halbert’s experience with her own would serve the task force well since they’ve worked together on traffic issues in the past “” even if they did disagree.
Valentine said she has been fighting the city and the McMillin Cos. since 2000, when she first saw the draft of their plans for Rosecrans Street. She said some plans she saw then had inaccurate maps, which may have contributed to the current traffic issues on Rosecrans Street.
Although already committed to several other public projects in the community, she said she wants to make sure someone close to the problem is present on the task force.
“The first thing I’m going to do is make sure they have their maps right,” she said.
So far, Valentine and Halbert are the only community members on board for the task force, Fuentes said.
He added that he plans to make similar presentations to other community organizations on the Peninsula to get feedback about traffic issues before selecting a consultant.
To contact Peninsula Community Planning Board members visit www.pcpb.net.