Traffic safety advocates on Tuesday unveiled an initiative to address dangerous speeding and traffic collisions along the border of San Diego and National City.
San Diego public advocate Shane Harris and local residents unveiled the Safe Streets Without Borders Initiative, which urges San Diego city and National City to address dangerous speeding and traffic collisions along their shared municipal boundary.
The proposal targets Division Street, South 40th Street, Second Avenue and Marine View Avenue, calling for new stop controls, traffic studies, speed-feedback equipment, high-visibility crosswalks and traffic-calming infrastructure, according to officials.
City collision data documents reported 34 crashes in the 3900 through 4200 blocks of Division Street between October 2016 and July 2026, resulting in 33 injuries. Speed was cited as a primary factor in multiple incidents, including crashes that injured pedestrians and drivers in October 2016, December 2018, May 2025 and July 2026.
Because the dataset largely excludes property-damage-only incidents, residents emphasize that the official numbers capture only a fraction of the daily hazards.
The initiative requests that both cities designate engineering representatives within 15 days, conduct a joint assessment within 30 days, complete traffic analysis within 60 days, and present an implementation plan or safer alternatives within 90 days. Harris has initiated talks with officials from both jurisdictions to coordinate action across the border.
“A jurisdictional boundary shouldn’t turn into a public-safety loophole,” Harris said. “Residents shouldn’t have to wait until a child, senior or another neighbor is killed before the government decides the danger is real.
Two cities share this street, and both cities share the responsibility to protect it.:
During the Tuesday press conference, Harris said he “grew up in this corridor of the city,” and has seen the disparity in terms of how other San Diego communities are treated, compared to this one.
“The people who live along this corridor are tired,” of worrying every time their child steps outside or when senior citizens have to calculate safety risks, Harris said.
“I look around us today and see that this is not a race track — this is an actual neighborhood,” Harris added. “Every crash represents another warning that government cannot afford to ignore.”
Harris said the city of San Diego doesn’t want to pay for needed improvements.
“At the end of the day, the city has the data, the city knows this is destructive and concerning, and the city continues to fail to act,” he added.
Resident Kelly Piper, who has lived on the National City side of Division Street since 2019, asked for National City and San Diego leaders “to come together and finally do something” to make the area safer.
Piper, who held her baby daughter as she spoke to reporters, said she has witnessed between 20 and 30 accidents in the last seven years, and even helped to pull a baby out of a vehicle back seat.
Piper said she lives in fear that she cannot walk around her neighborhood safely. Piper said that she has advocated for her community and spoken to both city traffic departments, but “nothing has come to fruition.”
Some residents have lived on the street for decades and have also tried to change the safety situation, Piper added.
She said that a San Diego traffic division assistant engineer informed her via email that roadway conditions, including speed, do not satisfy city criteria for “uncontrolled marked crosswalk installation.”
National City and San Diego representatives could not be reached for comment as of Tuesday afternoon.