The freeway medians of the world don\u2019t get much respect. Largely overlooked, generally unappreciated, they typically are gateways into communities and the first \u2014 and last \u2014 thing visitors see entering and exiting.
\nSuch is the case with freeway medians off Interstate 5 heading into Ocean Beach and Point Loma.
\nTwo local nonprofits \u2014 the Point Loma Association (PLA), made up of residents and local businesses donating and volunteering to improve the Peninsula;\u00a0and the Ocean Beach Community Development Corporation (OBCDC), which is dedicated to promoting the vibrancy of that neighborhood \u2014 have teamed for years to create attractive freeway medians heading into and out of the Peninsula area.
\nBoth groups would eventually like to see all freeway medians in the area embraced by the restoration effort.
\nAlthough not yet finished from end to end, a true success story in the joint revitalization project is demonstrated along a good portion of the large freeway median island near the Nimitz Boulevard and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard split just before the Interstate 8 East entrance.
\nOnce a wasteland, the finished portion of the median island is now more like a park, thanks to the work of numerous community volunteers, including the late Hugh Story and the PLA and one of its members in particular, Ed Streicher.
\n“Right now we have a landscape company that takes care of it all,” said Robert Tripp Jackson, PLA chairman, while recently surveying the well-tended and attractive island median surrounded by palm trees and dotted with cactus and other drought-tolerant plants.
\nBut just a couple of hundred yards away, pointed out Jackson, is another, much smaller median. This one dried out and is clearly in need of attention.
\n“We\u2019re trying to get the word out that we need help with this,” said Jackson. “The PLA wants to be part of the solution to find a remedy to improve this area because it\u2019s our gateway. The message we want to get out to folks is, \u2018Let\u2019s all pull together to try and find a solution to fix this.\u2019”
\nTom Perrotti, OBCDC president, said the island median\u2019s restoration “is looking good,” noting 30 years ago that open space was “a sand dune.”
\n“Compared to what it was, it\u2019s just spectacular,” Perotti said.
\nBut, Perrotti said that was just phase one of the median-revitalization project, pointing out there\u2019s much more work to be done.
\n“Now we\u2019re into the second phase, doing two other smaller medians, which have fallen into a stressed situation because of the water lines, which we\u2019re in negotiations with the city to maintain as our organization isn\u2019t set up to do that,” he said. “Hopefully, those two medians will (one day) look as nice as the very large one.”
\nConcerning progress in negotiations with the city toward median maintenance, Perrotti said, “We\u2019re in a holding pattern until we determine what the city is going to do, and that\u2019s going to happen within the next few months.”
\nMeanwhile, Jackson and the PLA are forging ahead with plans to extend freeway median restoration to include all of the gateway area into Ocean Beach and Point Loma.
\n“With the help of [District 2 City] Councilman [Kevin] Faulconer\u2019s office, we\u2019re improving\u00a0 the medians starting at West Point Loma Boulevard going south to the Catalina Boulevard offramp,” said Jackson. “We\u2019re hoping to start on that this year,” he said. “As money becomes available, we\u2019re going to ultimately take that all the way down to Harbor Drive, about two miles.”
\nJackson said community support is being sought for median reclamation. He noted\u00a0several prominent local families have stepped forward with donations of nearly $20,000.
\n“It\u2019s going to cost in the low $100,000s for the first phase,” he said. “We\u2019re hoping to start on that this winter to catch the rains.”
\nAnyone interested in donating toward the freeway median-beautification project, or learning more about it, to email rtrippj@aol.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The freeway medians of the world don\u2019t get much respect. Largely overlooked, generally unappreciated, they typically are gateways into communities and the first \u2014 and last \u2014 thing visitors see entering and exiting. Such is the case with freeway medians off Interstate 5 heading into Ocean Beach and Point Loma. Two local nonprofits \u2014 the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":270153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Volunteers team to revitalize, beautify eyesore areas","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270152","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=270152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}