Blakespear among those urging Encinitas to commit to safety measures along busy corridor

Regional leaders and educators on Saturday called on the Encinitas City Council to preserve safety components of the $4.1 million Santa Fe Drive Corridor Improvements Project.

The local- and state-funded effort is designed to address safety and circulation needs along a half-mile stretch of the drive that is heavily traveled by students, faculty and families at San Dieguito Academy High School.

The corridor and adjacent streets have been the site of multiple tragedies, according to officials, including the death of 15-year-old Brodee Champlain-Kingman in June 2023.

Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, was one of the people who appeared at a Saturday news conference near San Dieguito Academy to argue that it’s crucial to keep making the road safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Blakespear, who secured $3 million in the state budget two years ago to help pay for the majority of the project’s western phase, called it “sorely needed to protect the safety of school children and improve our roadway for all users.

“Now the City Council is considering tearing out key features of this project, which would be unsafe, costly and wasteful,” she said. That would be a terrible mistake.”

The project includes building barrier-protected bike lanes and walking paths, lowering the speed limit for vehicles, providing a dedicated bus pullout area, more parking and new curb and landscaping infrastructure.

“Our Encinitas community continues to speak up to demand safe streets and traffic calming,” Encinitas Deputy Mayor Joy Lyndes said. “Santa Fe Drive is a great example of how a city can achieve this through traffic calming. Here we combine cars, pedestrians, bicycles and stormwater management and we improve the safety of this route to school.”

She wants to see extensions of sidewalks and the addition of bike lanes to Santa Fe Drive and El Camino Real.

Those sentiments were echoed by Michelle Horsley, president of the San Dieguito Faculty Association.

“The protected bike lanes, new crosswalk and traffic calming measures in place now are a significant improvement to ensuring students and staff safety in this busy area of our community,” she said. “As teachers, we make students our number one priority and we ask the Encinitas City Council to do the same.”

In May, the council asked for at least three options for a redesign of the corridor project that would remove many of its core elements. The council voted 4-1, with Lyndes in opposition.

Encinitas residents have addressed the council during public comment, repeatedly raising safety concerns about the project. Some council members have referred to the project as a disaster and a legal hazard.

Their concerns include the challenges of back-in parking on a busy roadway, the struggles of big vehicles in narrow new vehicle lanes and tripping hazards posed by the stone-filled stormwater control areas near parking spots.

The council said it would pick one option later this year.