Encinitas to rip up most of Sante Fe Drive renovation project

The new, controversial, back-in parking spots, narrower vehicle lanes and one of the two, new separated bike lanes will be removed from Santa Fe Drive, the Encinitas City Council decided Wednesday.

At the end of a special meeting that stretched late into the evening, the council voted 4-1, with Councilmember Joy Lyndes opposed, to select city staff’s proposed “Alternative B” for reworking the recently renovated roadway. It’s the slightly more costly of three proposed options for reworking the roadway.

“I think we have a problem that we need to fix,” Mayor Bruce Ehlers said, mentioning that a city survey earlier this year found there was overwhelming public opposition to the new back-in parking spots near San Dieguito High School Academy.

Ehlers said people frequently are having trouble navigating the narrower vehicle lanes, the winding, off-road bike lanes and the unusual back-in parking spots.

Lyndes said she could back small changes to the renovation project, but not any of the three proposed staff alternatives, which all called for widening the vehicle lanes from 10 to 11 feet and eliminating elements of the renovation work, including planter box areas.

“I want to keep this just the way it is because that’s safer for kids,” she said, mentioning that studies have shown wider vehicle lanes tend to encourage drivers to go faster.

Long controversial, the roadway overhaul began near Interstate 5 at McKinnon Avenue and continued eastward to Evergreen Drive. Much of the work concluded this spring, but some elements were placed on hold after community opposition grew and the council majority shifted with the November election.

In addition to widening the new vehicle lanes from 10 to 11 feet, the option selected by the council calls for:

• Replacing the new back-in parking spots in the block near the high school with parallel parking. There currently are 46 spots, and the changes will leave the area with 44 to 47 parallel parking spaces, city staff said.
• Eliminating the roadside planter boxes, water quality basins and a separated bike lane on the south side across the street from the high school. (The separated bike lane on the north side of the roadway next to the high school will remain.)

Alternative B is estimated to cost $3.2 million to $3.6 million. That price includes up to $2 million for the roadway changes, plus $400,000 for a new westbound bike lane east of Bonita Drive and $1.2 million for previously planned improvements to two intersections — Nardo Road/MacKinnon Avenue and Bonita Drive/Windsor Road.

Construction is expected to take eight to 10 months, but that’s a long ways off — city employees said the council selected a “high-level” design concept. Final plans, and eventually construction contracts, will need to go before the council later for a vote.

Councilmember Marco San Antonio said he thought the city should move forward soon with the proposed work, saying he knew of at least three accidents along the newly renovated roadway section and the proposed changes will make conditions safer. Councilmember Luke Shaffer said he would like to go further than what Alternative B proposed, and eliminate both of the two separated bike lanes, thus creating more street parking and returning conditions more to the way they used to be.

Councilmember Jim O’Hara said he could support Alternative B, but said he would rather have 10.5-foot-wide vehicle lanes instead of the proposed 11-foot ones because the extra width could help expand a proposed, on-street, eastbound bike lane. He also recommended tweaking a proposed parallel parking area on the roadway’s south side to gain more room for the bike lane, a proposal the council ultimately accepted.

The council’s decision came after several hours of public testimony from some 40 people. About half of them told the council not to pursue a major overhaul of the roadway, saying they wanted the money used for other projects, including the eastern portion of Santa Fe Drive from Evergreen to El Camino Real.

Among those who supported reworking the roadway, Alternative B was most mentioned as their preferred choice. The other two options were slightly less costly than its $3.2 million to $3.6 million price tag. Alternative A, which was estimated to be $2.9 million to $3.1 million, called for keeping both the separated bike lanes, but reducing the size of the roadside planter boxes. Alternative C, which was forecasted to cost $2.8 million to $3 million, called for angled-in parking instead of parallel parking

The roadway renovation project has divided nearby property owners, and that was evident Wednesday. San Dieguito Union High School District board member Rimga Viskanta, a district business administrator and a faculty association leader all urged the council to hold off on making changes. Meanwhile, the people seeking the rapid removal of some project elements included a pastor of Venture Church and the operators of dental and optical businesses, all of which are across the street from the high school.