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SAN DIEGO — Work continues to address safer streets in the City of Carlsbad through an emergency proclamation approved in August.
The emergency proclamation to address safer roadways came after two deadly bike crashes in August and a 233% increase in e-bike and bike crashes in Carlsbad since 2019.
Tuesday night, the city presented more than 40 ideas and more than a dozen items they’ve already worked on to the city council.
The city had the opportunity to vote on approving up to $48 million more in funding to address all action items presented, but the city decided to vote on spending the already funded $2 million and get the opinion of the citizen traffic advisory commission and planning committee for guidance on what they would like to see done, before sending any more funding.
“Tonight the Carlsbad City Council entertained 44 ideas that came from staff and the community on ways to improve our local streets and roads,” Assistant City Manager for Carlsbad, Geoff Patnoe said after Tuesday night’s meeting.
The city approved continuing work on the following items, to name a few:
- Safer Streets Together Roll – $30,00
- Bike lane enhancements – $421,000
- Digital Roadway Messaging – $215,000
- Enhanced Enforcement – $635,000
“I’m completely supportive of the plan, the thing that’s really exciting to me is vision zero,” said Carlsbad resident and bike safety instructor Pete Penseyres, who claims he has already seen a change on city streets since the proclamation and more kids in his classes.
On Tuesday, the city presented its funding on the proclamation. So far, it has spent about $350,000 of their $2 million budget for the proclamation on several items including enhances enforcement, more signage and green-painted bike lanes, to name a few.
According to data from Carlsbad police, since the proclamation in the last month, the police department has issued about 881 warning and traffic citations in total, and 187 of those have been given to e-bike users. Police said they usually issue about 200 total warning and citations in a month.
The Carlsbad Police Department is also looking into legislative efforts to help in the fight, and looking at partnering with local schools for a permit program.
“If children want to utilize e-bikes or bikes to commit to and from school, there would be a requirement from the school to have them attend a training program free of charge provided by the police department and police officers,” said City of Carlsbad Police Chief Mickey Williams as he discussed ideas on the table in the police department.
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