Opinion/Letters to the Editor March 2023

March 9 issue:

Cities should look at applying Vision Zero principles to their roads

I would like to respond to a recent article titled “As bicycle, e-bike collisions rise in coastal North County, local officials discuss safety options”. Unfortunately this article and the responses from the cities miss the most important point: bike collisions are not simply rising because bicyclists are behaving in an unsafe manner, but because more people are biking due to the explosion in popularity of ebikes, and our city’s roads are unsafe for them. There will be a learning curve as new bike riders of all ages hit the roads, and it is important to educate both the cyclists and the drivers about the rules of the road. However, cities should embrace this increased bicycle use rather than discourage it through overregulation and penalties.

Instead of blaming the victims (people on bikes), the cities should examine the hostile environment that has been created from decades of prioritizing car travel. Paint alone does not create safe bike infrastructure: sharrows (paint to indicate bikes may take the full lane) have been shown to increase collisions and painted bike lanes provide no physical protection for bikes.

Cities should look at Vision Zero, a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all. Rather than assuming traffic deaths and severe injuries are inevitable side effects of modern life, cities should prevent these tragedies by taking a proactive, preventative approach that prioritizes traffic safety as a public health issue. (See visionzeronetwork.org)

We should listen to what the kids on ebikes are showing us: people crave increased mobility options. We should embrace a future of decreased dependency on cars and increased active transportation both to meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals and to build more vibrant communities.

People bike on sidewalks when the bike infrastructure feels unsafe — instead of discussing enforcement and ticketing of this behavior, cities should look at where people are biking on sidewalks and make it safer for them to bike.

Marked speed limits are not what determine vehicle speeds — people drive at a speed that feels safe to them. Excessively wide streets and lanes make many of our city streets look, feel, and act like freeways. The only thing that will make people drive slower is to make it feel unsafe to drive too fast.

Cities all over the country and the world have created roads that are safer for all modes of transportation. The cities that are the most successful at decreasing injuries and deaths are the ones who make a real commitment to applying Vision Zero principles to their roads. Together with education and safer roads, bicycle and e-bike collisions will decline resulting in safer cities for everyone.

Kristin Brinner

Solana Beach

Make the Rental Assistance Program a budget priority

The City of Del Mar’s Rental Assistance Program must continue for the remaining residents that rely on this program to fund their respective homes.

We are quite amazed that this issue is even debatable in our village — considering we voted for four of the current councilmembers. We’re scratching our heads because we thought we had a supermajority of councilmembers who share our values and place residents and community first.

This program should be as important and as fundamental as our water, sewer, and law enforcement operations that the City funds and maintains for residents.

What could possibly be more important to fund? Make the Rental Assistance Program a budget priority and do what is necessary to keep our recipients in their homes.

The Council’s feeble attempt to offer soft landings for these long-time residents is quite out-of-touch with the current rental market in San Diego County — and, especially in Del Mar. Pulling the rug out from under these residents is not an acceptable solution and certainly not a soft landing.

We find it quite curious that an entire City is looking to lean on a hardworking, local nonprofit, Community Connections, to support a commitment that belongs 100% with our City. Each of our Councilmembers has done nothing but talk, talk, talk about affordable housing — including during this last election cycle — and here we have affordable housing for decades and our City Councilmembers want to cut the legs out from under it.

This program must remain funded and serving our current four recipients. This program should only sunset when the last remaining recipient no longer needs Del Mar housing under our current program.

Make our rental assistance program a budget priority—do the right thing.

Lisa and Michael Uhrhammer

Full-time Del Mar residents for 24 years