Re “What happened to the Gaslamp promenade?” (Feb. 22): After reading about the failed completion of the Gaslamp promenade, my response was “Good riddance.”
We need look no further than our neighbors to the north in Santa Barbara, which closed the main street (State Street) to car traffic to make a pedestrian mall. This closure was done during the height of the COVID outbreak, and now the “pedestrian mall” looks more like a haven for the homeless and their shopping carts.
What was once a vibrant part of the downtown has largely been abandoned by shoppers, and businesses are complaining about the lack of parking.
Here in San Diego, are we poised to repeat this failure?
— Mark Heinze, San Diego
The downtown San Diego promenade is closed and the traffic on weekends is horrendous and pedestrians are unsafe.
Meanwhile, in the historic Tijuana downtown area, the new pedestrian promenade is open, safe and full of people, restaurants, music and cafes. Having visited Tijuana for many decades, I can see that the promenade has already extensively boosted the viability of its downtown. I had dinner last month at the famous Caesar’s restaurant with tableside Caesar salad. And Tijuana did this all for $1.3 million!
In our once-lovely city, we have an absolute mess of a historic downtown. Mayor Gloria states that our promenade would cost $65 million. A massive overspend.
We can all bet that nobody on Gloria’s team went to see the Tijuana promenade.
— Timothy Darling, San Diego