North Park Way and 30th Street – An Intersection In Need of Improvement

Although North Park’s “Busy Corner” lies a block north, the intersection of North Park Way and 30th Street is a popular crossing for pedestrians in the neighborhood.  In the heart of North Park, this intersection hosts Waypoint Public, Pigment, the North Park Parking Garage, and North Park Family Dentistry with many more businesses and residences nearby.  It is also an intersection that needs improvement to increase safety and convenience for residents and visitors to North Park.

Today my neighbor recounted being hit by a car driver at this intersection last week while she was pushing a stroller and walking with her seven-year-old.  The driver did not yield when making a left turn and did not use a blinker to indicate the left turn.  She plowed into the group of three in broad daylight.  If you walk this intersection you may have had close calls with drivers as I have on a number of occasions.  We need to do much more to make our neighborhoods safer – motor vehicle crashes are the top cause of death for American children and adolescents ages 1 to 19.

For this specific intersection here are a number of improvements we can make. (The following could be applied to many areas across the city as well and hopefully some, like LPI, become the default treatment rather than reactive to areas with injuries.)

1. Sync pedestrian signals.  Currently the east-west and north-south crossing signals do not sync – if you push the button on the east side only that side will give a “Walk” signal on green. These indicators should be synced for both sides of the street.
2. Automate pedestrian signals with minimum crossing times.  In addition to pushing the pedestrian walk request (aka “beg buttons”) the pedestrian walk symbol should automatically be triggered and illuminated for the minimum crossing time when a vehicle triggers a light change.
3. Add a Leading Pedestrian Interval (LPI) in addition to automatic minimum crossing time signal.  An LPI gives pedestrians a 3-7 second head start when crossing an intersection.  NACTO notes that LPIs “have been shown to reduce pedestrian-vehicle collisions as much as 60% at treated intersections”. You may have seen LPIs in action at 6th Avenue and Laurel Street or other locations.
4. Add “Yield to Pedestrian on Turns” signs. A simple reminder to look around when driving and be aware.
5. Add curb bulbouts to the intersection corners to reduce the road width (and consequently road speeds). The image below is the current intersection with red added for potential curb bumpouts to reduce the road width and in which plants and trees could be added or benches to sit.  The bulbouts would also reduce the roll-through turns that are common enough to be known as “California Stops”.  The yellow portions are for potential additional parking spaces to accompany the bulbouts. (I don’t favor more auto parking in the area as there are better uses for our limited public land but seems to be a way to help get safety improvements done since many like a free lunch.)

6. Add red light cameras to penalize bad actors (after remaking them legal in San Diego).  In 2013 San Diego got rid of red light cameras that were used to penalize those breaking laws at intersections.  Cameras are cheap and effective ways to enforce laws like speeding, running red lights, etc. and would be ideal for areas like this intersection where common law-breaking by drivers has more severe repercussions due to the high number of humans nearby.

7. Lower speed limit to 20 MPH.  Lower speeds help to avoid collisions and reduce the harm when collisions occur.  This article has a great interactive chart showing the relative fatality risk at various speeds.

If you’re interested in helping make this intersection better in the ways noted above (or your own) you can help by contacting our City Councilmember, Chris Ward at christopherward@sandiego.gov and the Council Office Rep for North Park, Tyler Renner  – trenner@sandiego.gov.

Taking a moment to send a message as simple as “Please make the intersection at 30th and North Park Way safer. Our family walks there often. Thank you.” are great and really help to make improvements on the ground reality.

[Related note: Thank you to all that voiced support for a new crosswalk at Jefferson Elementary – located 3 blocks directly west of the intersection highlighted in this post.  Mr. Renner informed me this is scheduled to be installed in 2019 as part of the new Mini-Park in North Park behind the Observatory.]

For context here are a few photos of the intersection I took today, 1/5/2019.