City flagged San Carlos intersection as dangerous, then denied safety improvements for it before child’s death

A year before a car crash killed 11-year-old Andrew Olsen on his walk to school with his two siblings, a city analysis determined the San Carlos intersection had “fatal crash characteristics.”

That same year, in 2024, city officials deemed the intersection ineligible for four-way stop signs or crosswalks, based on criteria used to evaluate where safety improvements are necessary.

Colin Parent, CEO and general counsel of nonprofit advocacy group Circulate San Diego, said the determination calls into question the utility of the city’s criteria.

“That is a high-speed arterial corridor in a residential neighborhood, very close to a school campus,” he said. “It strains credibility to imagine that there’s some process that evaluated whether or not that street should be made more safe, that decided it didn’t need to be made more safe.”

The posted speed limit on the four-lane Jackson road is 40 miles per hour. The intersection has only a two-way stop on Lake Badin Avenue, and is a 15-minute walk from Pershing Middle School.

In the week since the crash, the San Carlos community has come together to grieve Olsen’s death, while elected officials have pledged to implement short and long-term fixes.

What went wrong

Around 7:20 a.m. on Oct. 20, Andrew Olsen and his two sisters were crossing Jackson Drive from Lake Badin Avenue on their way to Pershing Middle School when they were struck by an eastbound vehicle.

Authorities ruled out speeding and driving under the influence as potential factors, with the driver reporting that the height of the sun impaired his vision. 

The crash not only occurred amid a national trend of increasing pedestrian traffic deaths, but some community members say the city overlooked their prior concerns about Jackson Drive.

The city’s Transportation Department — acting on public requests — evaluated the intersection for an all-way stop in March 2024 and a marked crosswalk in November 2024.

City staff evaluates those requests against adopted criteria — one for four-way stops, last updated in 1997, and one for crosswalks, last updated in 2015.

Those policies use a point system based on factors like speed, pedestrian volumes, crash history, proximity to schools, visibility and existing lighting.

To meet the criteria for an all-way stop, an intersection must score a minimum of 25 points. For a marked crosswalk, a proposed site must meet six basic criteria and score at least 16 points. 

The Jackson Drive and Lake Badin intersection scored just 10 points for all-way stop signs and did not meet the basic criteria for a crosswalk.

Immediately after the crash, District 7 Councilmember Raul Campillo pledged to deliver improvements and to study the areas around all other schools in the district for vulnerabilities. 

As a result of his councilmember privilege, a four-way stop will be installed by Friday. Future changes to Jackson Drive, according to the Transportation Department, include reduced speed limits and reduced lane numbers in certain stretches.

In a not-yet-public response to Campillo, the Transportation Department pointed to a “systemic traffic analysis” published by the city in the same year that the intersection failed to qualify for safety fixes.

That analysis determined that the Lake Badin and Jackson Drive intersection was one of 488 intersections identified citywide that warranted infrastructure upgrades in the 2027 fiscal year’s budget. 

Details on how that specific intersection qualified are not yet available, but the city identified common high-risk traits. Intersections that have a history of crashes, exist on a public transit route and/or are between a 4- and 2-lane street — like the Jackson and Lake Badin intersection — are more likely to experience fatal crashes.

“That crash that happened with this incident in San Carlos, in part, it was the result of the infrastructure choices that the city had made when they designed and maintained that street,” Parent said. “And so that’s an outcome of human agency. People made decisions to do that.”

Safe to school

While the intersection is not in a school zone, the siblings were just a 15-minute walk away from Pershing Middle School when they were struck — a common route for neighborhood students.

Pershing Middle School is a San Diego Unified School, a district with extremely limited bus service. Among schools that provide buses, students must reside farther than 5 miles from the school. The vast majority of district students walk or catch a ride from an adult.

That’s why Circulate San Diego CEO Parent and Policy Manager Aria Grossman said the city needs to go above and beyond in prioritizing student safety.

“There’s a limited flexibility to lower speed limits within 500 feet, 1000 feet from the school,” Grossman said, referring to state mandates. “But the city councilmembers, the mayor have a responsibility to make sure that all students [who] walk to school are safe, no matter where they’re coming from.”

Pershing Middle School Principal Melanie Kray welcomed Campillo’s promise to study other improvements near schools, emphasizing that San Carlos is a rare area in the district with growth in school enrollment.

“My hope is that the city, through their review of the traffic patterns and the situation that’s going on, will make sure that we’re building an infrastructure that makes it safer for all students,” she said.

A national problem

Nationwide pedestrian traffic fatalities increased 48% from 2014 to 2024, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. 

A major factor driving the phenomenon is the increased use of larger cars like SUVs and CUVs, and general inflation in size among individual car models. SUVs, with taller grilles and sturdier bumpers, are nearly twice as likely to cause severe pedestrian injury as sedans, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Those are problems beyond the policy reach of local officials, but they’re still at play on local streets.

Though less than the national average, San Diego pedestrian fatalities increased 14% from 2014 to 2024, while overall pedestrian crash numbers remained relatively stable.

Circulate San Diego’s 2024 report, in reviewing the first decade of the city’s Vision Zero program, argued that the increased popularity of larger cars makes city action on local safety measures essential.

“There are some bigger trends that are happening that you’re seeing nationally,” Parent said. “But that doesn’t mean we throw up our hands and don’t do anything.

In their report, Circulate recommended that the city focus on the 15 most dangerous intersections, pursue quick-build projects and update the city’s Street Design Manual to meet national standards. 

The current manual, which establishes guidelines for road infrastructure, is from 2017, but has not received a major update since 2002. The city drafted a new manual in December 2024, but advocates argue it didn’t adequately prioritize safety. Circulate is still working to collect community feedback for improvements.

The immediate response to Olsen’s death, though, has been centered in San Carlos, not the city hall.

“There’s just been opportunity after opportunity where the community has stepped up and just expressed care and been so supportive of the students, the staff, the school,” Kray said. “San Carlos is really a special place, and I feel really fortunate to work here, and it’s what got us through this week, quite honestly.”