Pedestrian and cyclist safety projects planned for three major city roadways can move into the design phase with some slight tweaking, the Encinitas City Council unanimously decided Wednesday.<\/p>\n
But a decision on a fourth project \u2014 a proposed South Coast Highway 101 pedestrian crosswalk near the northern edge of Solana Beach \u2014 will wait until the council\u2019s Nov. 12 meeting.<\/p>\n
Dan King, Solana Beach\u2019s assistant city manager, asked the Encinitas council for this \u201cshort delay,\u201d saying the currently favored alternative for the pedestrian crossing project might impact Solana Beach\u2019s plans to extend its popular rail trail northward toward the Encinitas city limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to collaborate in good faith with our neighbor,\u201d Encinitas Councilmember Joy Lyndes, who represents the Cardiff region, said after King made his request, later adding, \u201cI think we can work something out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Encinitas elected officials were less certain.<\/p>\n
Mayor Bruce Ehlers said he thought the Solana Beach rail trail extension would require Encinitas to eliminate one of the two vehicle lanes in each direction on Coast Highway 101.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like we have an impasse regardless,\u201d he said, mentioning that he was strongly opposed to eliminating vehicle lanes on city roadways.<\/p>\n
Councilmembers Jim O\u2019Hara, Marco San Antonio and Luke Shaffer said they too opposed lane eliminations, or lane \u201cec-tomies\u201d \u2014 like the word \u201clobotomy\u201d \u2014 as Ehlers referred to them. Proponents of roadway lane eliminations have their own favored term \u2014 they often call them \u201clane diets.\u201d<\/p>\n
King then told the Encinitas council that Solana Beach might be able to pursue its rail trail extension project without the vehicle lane removal in Encinitas, saying that\u2019s why Solana Beach officials want extra time now to discuss the issue with Encinitas officials.<\/p>\n
All four roadway projects have recently won state and federal grant funding under a program that promotes improvements to areas with \u201ca history of severe collisions,\u201d a city staff report states. The grants total $3.27 million and need to be matched with about $314,000 in city funds.<\/p>\n
Encinitas needs to accept the grant funding offers by mid-December, and then will embark on the process of picking final designs, seeking contractor bids and awarding construction contracts, City Manager Jennifer Campbell said.<\/p>\n
The other three grant-funded projects are:<\/p>\n
A protected bike lane on Encinitas Boulevard between Calle Magdalena and Via Cantebria. Plans call for the roadway\u2019s wide two-way, left-turn lane areas to be narrowed, creating extra space for bigger bike lanes with protective plastic bollards. Also planned are new vehicle right-turn pockets at the Saint John School entrance and at the Balour Drive intersection to improve traffic flow. Council members supported a design alternative that included these elements, but said they wanted the use of plastic bollards along the bike lanes to be limited.
\nAn overhaul of Santa Fe Drive\u2019s intersection with El Camino Real. Council members picked Alternative B \u2014 an option that preserved much of the existing geometry of the intersection, but said they wanted to add a concrete \u201cisland\u201d in El Camino\u2019s north pedestrian crosswalk, as well as curb stops along part of a new bike lane on the north side of El Camino, longer red traffic lights during school hours and possibly curb \u201cbulb-outs\u201d on the Santa Fe Drive corners.
\nA pedestrian sidewalk and bike lane changes to South Coast Highway 101 from the southern Encinitas city limit to the Cardiff State Beach traffic signal. Council members selected Alternative B, which would widen the existing pedestrian walkway on the west side of the roadway and expand the west side\u2019s current, one-way protected bike lane into a two-way one. That protected area would accommodate slower family cyclists, while keeping the existing northbound bike lane on the east side of the roadway for faster cyclists, council members said. Plans for a sidewalk along the east side of the roadway would not be pursued under this option and existing curb stops along the east side\u2019s bike lane would be eliminated, as well as some on the west side.<\/p>\n
To view proposed design options for the various projects, visit https:\/\/encinitas.granicus.com\/MetaViewer.php?view_id=7&event_id=5026&meta_id=194158.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 23, 2025 at 12:12 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedestrian and cyclist safety projects planned for three major city roadways can move into the design phase with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,4601,23,100,3054,74,84,76,75,3179,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-20984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-encinitas","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-north-county","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-county","15":"tag-san-diego-headlines","16":"tag-san-diego-news","17":"tag-solana-beach","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}