A sea of green and red stickers ” more than 350 in total ” filled the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center auditorium on Tuesday, July 11, dividing residents and business owners by color into those who supported and opposed building the Regents Road Bridge over Rose Canyon.
After two hours of comment from bridge proponents and opponents, the University Community Planning Group (UCPG) voted 10-3 against all the major proposals for relieving traffic congestion in the area, including building the Regents Road Bridge, widening Genesee Avenue to six lanes and creating an underpass at Governor Drive beneath Genesee Avenue.
Instead, UCPG trustees recommended the “Limited Roadway Changes” Alternative, the sixth of seven alternatives in the final environmental impact report (EIR), which analyzed seven projects designed to ameliorate traffic congestion in University City.
The roadway changes solution was deemed “environmentally superior among the other alternatives,” stated the motion. The roadway changes would add an additional eastbound left-turn lane on the southbound side of Genesee Avenue and Regents Road at their interchanges with State Route 52. A second left-turn and right-turn lane would also be added to the westbound side of Governor Drive and Genesee.
The motion advised postponing the SR-52/Regents Road interchange, however, until traffic studies could support its construction in the absence of the bridge.
The city should also focus on improving traffic flow through intersections along Genesee Avenue, stated the motion.
Finally, the motion called for the removal of the Regents Road Bridge from the University City Community Plan, since the EIR states that it has “the greatest number of environmental impacts to our neighborhoods and to Rose Canyon and provides limited congestion relief at the highest [monetary] cost of any alternative.”
Proponents for connecting Regents Road, which dead-ends on either side of the canyon, urged trustees to consider the improved access the bridge would provide south University City to hospitals in the north. Emergency vehicles could also avoid the congestion of Genesee Avenue to reach southern residents sooner, supporters said.
Former Fire Chief Jeff Bowman supported constructing the bridge or widening Genesee, according to UC Connection President Marsha Munn, who quoted Bowman as saying: “While the other four alternatives may potentially relieve congestion during peak hours, they would not provide the same level of access as the new bridge.”
The bridge would also provide another north/south escape route in the face of a Cedar-like wildfire or natural disaster, according to bridge supporters.
“By definition, the EIR is only about negative environmental aspects,” Munn said. “It never considers the positive. Because only negative impacts to the environment were included, no mention is made of public safety and improved medical and fire response times.”
Widening Genesee by two lanes is also not the answer, bridge proponents said. Residents along the thoroughfare, including a 132-unit senior complex, would suffer from two extra lanes of traffic and the years of construction. Approximately 21,000 cubic yards would be cut and filled along the avenue.
The 200 mature conifer trees lining the middle of the road would also be cut down and thousands of square feet of concrete retaining wall would be built along Genesee, according to the EIR.
UC Connection refuted the idea that the Regents Bridge would spur more development in North University City. The existing density of condos, apartments, offices, retail and scientific research space was approved assuming that the bridge would be built as identified in the community plan, proponents said.
“What’s more, UCSD will be increasing the number of students, faculty and research staff, adding another 50,000 average daily trips in our community. Routing all the traffic down Genesee is not the answer,” UC Connection said.
The pro-bridge group urged trustees to use Facilities Benefit Assessment funds ” monies collected from developers who build projects in the community ” to build the bridge.
Opponents to the bridge spoke of the importance of preserving Rose Canyon as one of the few open spaces left in the community. Trustee Tom Tighe described it as a gem surrounded by a pile of coal.
“The bridge and its cut-and-fill approach ramp will stretch for 1,570 feet across the canyon ” that’s over five football fields long,” said Mel Hinton, president of the San Diego Audubon Society. “A walk in Rose Canyon will never be the same.”
The bridge will also do little to alleviate congestion on Genesee, while clogging up the peaceful neighborhoods on either side of Rose Canyon, opponents said. Cars will chose to come through Regents Road instead of using the freeways, Karen Bender said.
“The EIR itself reports that the proposed bridge would fail to alleviate the problems at the [Genesee and Governor] intersection,” Bender said.
Bridge opponents also questioned the need for another road. The city’s future traffic projections have been consistently wrong for the area, so why should the community rely on future projections as reasoning for the bridge, asked Daniel Arovas, president of UC Golden, an organization against the bridge.
In 1986, the city projected that 70,000 average daily trips would occur on Genesee Avenue by 2005. However, 2004 figures only showed 32,000 average daily trips for Genesee, according to Arovas.
Traffic counts on Genesee Avenue between University City High School and Governor Drive are also lower in 2004 than in 1989, according to City of San Diego Machine Count Tables. The average daily trips in 1989 equaled approximately 37,000 for that segment of the road, as compared to about 34,000 trips in 2004.
The $36 million price tag for the bridge also outweighs its benefits, Arovas said, adding that for that price, the city could build six fire stations.
Arovas also calculated that for every $1 million spent on the bridge, only 7.5 seconds of commute time is saved, whereas for every $1 million spent on widening Genesee Avenue, 18.3 seconds of relief time is achieved.
“I’ve tried to summarize the data in a way we can all understand, computing how much bang we get for our buck,” Arovas said.
Connecting Regents Road would also endanger the children crossing the street to attend Doyle Elementary School and the recreation center on Regents Road, bridge opponents argued.
Finally, University City is served by plenty of north/south routes besides Genesee Avenue, Arovas argued. Twenty lanes of freeway bracket the community with interstates 5 and 805.
After voting against the major alternative, trustees lamented the quality of the environmental report, and voted 7-3-2 that the city not certify the document.
While the EIR provided enough evidence to support UCPG’s vote against supporting the Regents Road Bridge, the document “is confusing, inconsistent, inaccurate and misleading,” UCPG Chair Linda Colley stated.
The EIR “failed to identify a reasonable range of lower-impact alternatives,” Colley said. “It is intended as a ‘project level’ EIR, yet it puts off until after project approval analysis of many of the environmental impacts.”
The San Diego City Council is expected to vote on a project from the final EIR on Aug. 8. UCPG meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Forum Hall above the Wells Fargo Bank, 4315 La Jolla Village Drive.
For more information call Colley, (858) 453-0435. or e-mail [email protected].
To purchase a copy of the EIR, contact Martha Blake, (619) 446-5375. CD-ROMs cost $5 and a printed copy is $200. Hard copies are also available for review at: City of San Diego Development Services Center, 1222 First Ave.; University Community Branch Library, 4155 Governor Drive; and Clairemont Community Service Center, 4731 Clairemont Drive.
For more information about UC Golden, UC Connection and Friends of Rose Canyon, visit www.ucgolden.org, www.ucconnection.org and www.rosecanyon.org.