In what has become an annual tradition, beautifulPB has released the results of its 2022 PB Counts, which indicates people in the beach community are increasingly walking more, while electric scooter use is declining.
In 2015, beautifulPB started PB Counts, an annual neighborhood traffic count focused on non-motorized vehicles, which is conducted by volunteers and community members in the western central area of Pacific Beach. It is the only community-led traffic count conducted regularly in San Diego County, and one of the few that consistently tracks all modes of transportation.
“We weren’t able to count as many locations as we have in the past, but we did manage to capture data on the five key locations that we’ve counted every year since 2015, which gives us a sense of travel trends over time,” said Katie Matchett, beautifulPB president. “You can see that things have remained fairly consistent over the years.”
Matchett noted there was one trend in non-motorized vehicular use that stood out this year.
“Use of e-scooters seems to be going down from its peak in 2019,” she said adding, “You will see from the chart in the report that PB continues to be a community where people get around in many different ways. In particular, over one-third of our traffic is people walking.”
As in past years, results from PB Counts have shown that, while driving makes up the majority of travel in Pacific Beach, non-motorized transportation (walking, biking, e-scooters, skateboards, and similar modes) is significant in the community.
Over one-third of the travel on the blocks counted in 2022 included people walking. Biking is also popular, particularly on streets with lower vehicle traffic like Law or Diamond streets.
Overall, travel trends have remained fairly consistent over the years, with driving around 55-60% of traffic, walking about 35%, and the remainder made up by other travel modes.
The introduction of e-scooters in 2018 may have led to a small decrease in walking and biking but did not make a significant impact on overall traffic patterns. Since 2020 changes in e-scooter availability and regulation have led to a decrease in their use, and in the latest count, e-scooters made up only 1% of traffic.
Matchett said beautifulPB has remained busy continuing to work in 2022 on a number of community-improvement projects.
“We’re hoping to expand (wildlife) art done on trash cans to incorporate more portions of the community, including a large-scale mural with the theme of connecting our community with some of our habitats and environmental resources that we have in PB, especially the marshes and some of the species that live there,” she said. “That is really in the early planning stages.”
Matchett said beautifulPB is also partnering with the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition to put together a budget for travel infrastructure improvements needed for future funding consideration by the City.
BeautifulPB is a public nonprofit charity formed by a group of PB residents, businesses, and property owners who are collaborating with the local community to create a sustainably beautiful Pacific Beach.
The group is working to implement a number of community projects and programs bringing the community closer to realizing a Pacific Beach EcoDistrict. In February 2016, bike lanes and street repaving came to Cass Street in North PB. Eventually, bike lanes will extend south on Cass Street to Reed Avenue. Improvements will continue as funding becomes available and staging with other road work allows.
The Pacific Beach EcoDistrict aims to increase equity, resilience, and climate protection for the PB region by bolstering economic vitality, accessible neighborhood housing, and low-carbon mobility. Since its founding in 2013, the EcoDistrict Model has demonstrated that neighborhoods are the ideal scale to innovate equitable, sustainable development in cities. Today, a diverse cross-sector coalition of PB volunteers and funders are united in addressing high business failure rates, increasing income inequality, unusually-long trip distances, and unsafe and illegal bike commuting.
PB COUNTS
PB Counts was conducted this year on Saturday, Aug. 20 from 3-5 p.m. on Diamond and Law streets and between Emerald and Felspar streets and Reed Avenue along PB Pathways, as well as along sections of Garnet Avenue and Hornblend Street. PB Pathways is a network of safe neighborhood routes encouraging people to walk, bike, scooter, or skate to their destinations paired with traffic-calming measures and other features to improve safety. For more information, visit beautifulpb.com.
