6 San Diego Reader March 30, 2017


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NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS By Reader stringers BARRIO LOGAN


No let-up in truck traffic New drivers only part of the problem For decades, residents of Barrio Logan have been dealing with air and noise pollution from Port of San Diego semi-trucks tak- ing unsanctioned short-cuts through their neighborhoods. Now the port is planning a 400 percent expansion of the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.


nearly hourly. Gonzalez said the Tenth Avenue Marine


Terminal expansion will more than double the amount of trucks in the area. While he said that the situation has improved since 2005 — after trucks were banned from Cesar Chavez Parkway and other streets — the major issue is still too many cars all trying to leave from a one-lane access to an onramp on Boston Avenue that shouldn’t be there. According to a 2014 Department of Transportation document, 90 percent of Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal shipments travel out by truck; the other 10 percent go by rail. Rafael Castellanos is on the port’s board


of commissioners. He said they’re exploring the possibility of working with the City of San Diego and National City to make Harbor Drive improvements. Like Gonzalez, Castellanos says, “You get


a lot of new drivers that aren’t familiar with the truck routes.... A dedicated haul road would be very helpful. If we can direct trucks onto that route, that would help to get them out of the community. But we’ll need help with funding; it would take a lot of money, and we get no help from Sandag. Sandag tells us they aren’t responsible for the last mile between the coast and inland.” Castellanos said the port has worked with


Barrio Logan’s 16-foot, 6-inch gateway sign prevents some trucks from using Cesar Chavez Parkway.


On March 15, the port announced a new


planned traffic study to get a handle on the problem of port truck drivers not following the sanctioned route. The announcement was made at the Barrio Logan planning group meeting. According to Mark Steele, chair of the planning group, instead of coming from the other side of Harbor Drive, trucks are cutting through Cesar Chavez, Beardsley, Sigsbee, and other streets. Jorge Gonzalez from the Environmen-


tal Health Coalition has been working with residents on this issue for years. According to Gonzalez, he was the one who proposed the traffic study. Gonzalez said residents see trucks in their


neighborhoods all the time. “In the middle of the day, during rush hour, in the evening. Around 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., you hear trucks on residential streets. At night is when you hear it the most.” Gonzalez blames a lack of infrastructure


and said that it’s more about how trucks exit Barrio Logan than how they enter. “The most impacted on-ramp is on Boston Avenue. Trucks should go to South Harbor from the Port, but during rush hour they do short-cuts onto Main Street and other adjacent streets.” He also pointed to the other end of Bos-


ton that has one of the largest recycling cen- ters in the area, where trucks enter and exit


nearby residents over the years to minimize their impact to the community. In 2014, the Barrio Logan gateway sign was installed in part to keep big trucks off Cesar Chavez Park- way (semi-trucks can’t clear it). In 2012, Dole signed a 24.5-year lease


with the port, which moved a Dole loading facility on Main Street to National City, which helped reduce traffic on Main. The terms of the lease stated that Dole would work with the port on infrastructure improvements as well as to improve the environment for the neighboring community. Castellanos said that Dole imports 180 million bananas a


month through the Tenth Avenue Terminal. JULIE STALMER


MIRA MESA


Rumble in Sorrento Valley Eight more homes too many for small hillside enclave More than 40 residents of Mira Mesa neigh- borhood that’s small and private by topog- raphy and design showed up at a planning group meeting on March 20 to oppose a project that would add houses at the end of their street above Los Peñasquitos Can- yon Preserve. Tierra Alta is a Newland Homes proj-


ect the builders began designing in 1999. It uses the northern tip of a mesa that extends north from Calle Cristobal (the renamed Sorrento Valley Road). Right now, there are about 100 homes in the Tierra Mesa subdivi- sion, which is a big cul-de-sac, with just one street entrance off the busy Calle Cristobal.


HILLCREST


Parking meters with eyes End of the free or discounted spot? “I think it’s weird and foreign-looking,” said LeeAnn Donan. Donan, 49, from Mission Hills, was referring to the two grayish boxes that appeared to have cameras inside of them mounted on the pole underneath the two parking meters. The meters stand in front of the Village Hat Shop in Hillcrest. As of 7:00 p.m. on March 23, there were


six “mystery boxes” mounted on five parking- meter poles on Fourth Avenue right before it intersects with Robinson Avenue. “I only noticed them on Fourth Avenue


as well,” said Bill Mondigo, 56, from North Park. “I noticed there was one on my meter and the next meter south of me, but not on


Residents came to the meeting to oppose the project, which would add eight new homes at the north end of their neighborhood. “There are people here today who just


heard about this,” said resident Jonathan Perkins. “People who oppose this plan — and we’re finding out that the planning group approved it without talking to the residents — we’re left in the dark.” How the property can be developed has


long been a difficult question. In 2002, the California Coastal Commission rejected the city’s proposed rezoning to medium density and proposed its own version. “The site is partially a flat mesa top and


partially steep slopes leading down into Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve,” a California Coastal Commission report from 2002 says. “Nearly all of the site is Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area, including southern mixed chaparral on both the slopes and mesa top, with vernal pool habitat present on the mesa top as well.” The 4.4-acre site is only suitable for low-


density housing, between one and four homes per acre, according to the report, which rec- ommends that about 25 percent can be devel- oped and the rest of the site turned into open space to protect fairy shrimp — which inhabit vernal pools — and other sensitive habitat. The 2002 plan shows about a dozen lots


and houses at the mesa tip. But the project wasn’t completed for reasons unknown. New- land Communities and its engineer, John Leppert, did not return calls for information. The revised project is facing a deadline of


March 31 to turn in much of its documenta- tion for city approval. Because it has already been approved in


concept, residents in the quiet cul-de-sac have few options to oppose the project, they learned. Their best option would be going through city councilman Chris Cate’s office. A representative from the councilman’s office was at the meeting and indicated that this was the first he’d heard about the coming new construction.


MARTY GRAHAM


“When you remove your car, the meter resets to zero; so the next person has to pay in full to park in the spot.”


all the meters.” (There are approximately 20 between University and Robinson ave- nues.) “So I bent down to check it out and saw what looked like a small Go-Pro-sized camera lens inside the box, mounted at about fender height on the parking-meter pole with a small solar panel on the top.” Mondigo first saw the boxes on March 21


when he and his daughter went out to dinner. He did not know what to make of them, so he posted a photo on the NextDoor website. One resident immediately responded, “It’s not cameras, it’s a sensor. Let’s say you put money for two hours but only stayed one. When you remove your car, the meter resets to zero; so the next person has to pay in full to park in the spot.” Stephanie Cass from North Park said, “I


genuinely hope that what is being said on this forum [regarding the assumption that the boxes are sensors] isn’t true [and] that people’s monies are being effectively stolen when someone else could have used the spot with the remainder time.” After initial publication of this article,


city spokesperson Racquel Vasquez wrote, “The cameras identified in this inquiry are monitoring and verifying that the vehicle detection sensor inside of the meter heads are working correctly. The City is piloting vehicle detection sensors to gather data on the occupancy rate. The occupancy rates tell us how well the meter is utilized by custom- ers. The data received through the cameras is being used to calibrate the sensors and validate the input received. These cameras are temporary and are only used for this purpose by the vendor. The monitoring currently in place has been going on for a few months and are only located on these particular meters on 4th Ave.”


MIKE MADRIAGA continued on page 8


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