{"id":247712,"date":"2014-08-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/hillcrest-coalition-formed-around-alternative-to-sandag-bike-plan\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T07:00:00","slug":"hillcrest-coalition-formed-around-alternative-to-sandag-bike-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/hillcrest-coalition-formed-around-alternative-to-sandag-bike-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Se form\u00f3 una coalici\u00f3n de Hillcrest en torno a una alternativa al plan de bicicletas SANDAG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hutton Marshall | <\/span>Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Hillcrest\u2019s three largest community organizations recently formed an informal coalition to support an alternative to the forthcoming SANDAG bicycle corridor through the neighborhood. Although SANDAG has not released a preliminary layout of their bicycle corridor design, community groups have quickly rallied behind the plan envisioned by Bankers Hill architect Jim Frost<\/a> as a community-friendly alternative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Frost\u2019s plan was unveiled in August, the Hillcrest Business Association (HBA), the Hillcrest Town Council (HTC) and the Uptown Community Parking District (UPCD) have each passed motions supporting the plan. The three organizations will now convene regularly in hopes of rallying more community support. HBA Interim Executive Director Benjamin Nicholls said the coalition drafted a joint letter it will soon send to SANDAG.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the tone of the letter is going to be more demanding than previous letters that typically come out of these community organizations,\u201d Nicholls said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got consensus, so we don\u2019t have to ask people to study things, we are going to ask people to do things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The plan, known as \u201cTransforming Hillcrest,\u201d proposes condensing street traffic to just one lane in each direction in order to provide more parking and pedestrian space. Both SANDAG and Frost include protected bikeways in their plans, which differ from commonly seen bike lanes in San Diego by creating a physical buffer between cyclists and automotive traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Supporters of the alternative point to Frost\u2019s inclusion of over 40 additional parking spaces, compared to the SANDAG plan, which many fear will remove University Avenue parking. A SANDAG spokesman stated earlier this month that the planning agency did not have an estimate on the impact its design will have on parking.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The coalition will host a meeting in September \u2014 details pending \u2014 where Jim Frost will give a presentation outlining his plan. The Uptown Planners will also hear Frost\u2019s plan as an action item at their Sept. 2 meeting, which means they\u2019ll vote to make a recommendation to city planners on the design.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe community is clearly speaking with one voice, and when you boil it down, the community is saying we would like parking more than we would like University Avenue to be basically a highway into North Park,\u201d Nicholls said. \u201cThat\u2019s what [Frost\u2019s] plan ultimately is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Samantha Ollinger, executive director of Bike San Diego, a bicycle-advocacy nonprofit, said she\u2019s \u201cneutral to supportive\u201d of Frost\u2019s plan. She is primarily concerned with the possibility that the bike lanes would have to be narrowed to allow for the design\u2019s other amenities. Frost previously stated that the bike lanes in his plan will be the same as those in SANDAG\u2019s: five feet wide with a three-foot buffer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m waiting to see how it would be laid out on the ground, but conceptually I don\u2019t have any issues with it at all,\u201d Ollinger said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similar to what Frost\u2019s plan proposes, Ollinger asked a SANDAG planner to study the feasibility of reducing University Avenue to one lane in each direction through portions of Hillcrest. She said no such feasibility study has been completed to her knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

PowerPoint presentations outlining Frost\u2019s Transforming Hillcrest plan\u00a0can be downloaded by clicking on the links below:<\/span><\/p>\n

SANDAG Univ Ave East 070114 Rev1<\/a><\/p>\n

SANDAG Univ Ave Central 070114 Rev1<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hutton Marshall | Editor Hillcrest\u2019s three largest community organizations recently formed an informal coalition to support an alternative to the forthcoming SANDAG bicycle corridor through the neighborhood. Although SANDAG has not released a preliminary layout of their bicycle corridor design, community groups have quickly rallied behind the plan envisioned by Bankers Hill architect Jim Frost […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":247710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Hillcrest coalition formed around alternative to SANDAG bike plan","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11593,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-no-images","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}