A University of San Diego student was fatally struck by a San Diego police vehicle early Wednesday morning on Linda Vista Road, prompting questions from neighbors about why pedestrian safety improvements were never installed.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the collision happened around 1:30 a.m. on Linda Vista Road between Goshen and Brunner streets. According to police, a Western Division officer driving a marked patrol vehicle westbound on Linda Vista Road struck the student. <\/p>\n
The student, identified only as a man in his 20s, died a few hours later at a local hospital.<\/p>\n
The location has long been the focus of pedestrian safety concerns. <\/p>\n
In 2016, the city developed a Comprehensive Active Transportation Strategy for Linda Vista that recommended installing a high-visibility ladder-style crosswalk and a pedestrian-activated high-intensity signal beacon near a staircase that serves as a shortcut to and from the University of San Diego campus.<\/p>\n
The estimated cost of the improvements was $111,000.<\/p>\n
According to the traffic strategy, the recommendation was based on public comments, the area’s proximity to the university and a history of pedestrian-related crashes at the location.<\/p>\n
Briley Pizzelanti, who lives near the crash site, said traffic frequently moves quickly along the road.<\/p>\n
“As you can tell it is a busy road. People drive pretty fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pizzelanti and her husband moved into the neighborhood about six months ago. She said her doorbell camera captured an image of the scene after the collision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the cop cars. There were some big lights set up. I wasn\u2019t sure what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Near the crash site, a staircase provides pedestrian access to and from campus. At the bottom of the stairs are bollards and chain-link fencing. Police said those measures were installed to discourage people from crossing Linda Vista Road at that location.<\/p>\n
Neighbor Jen German said the area sees heavy foot traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts generally busy. You have USD here and then you got this apartment complex. I mean, just so many people that live here.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC 7 emailed the City of San Diego asking why the recommended crosswalk and pedestrian beacon were never constructed but has not received a response.<\/p>\n
Pizzelanti said students often cross the roadway despite the risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe traffic is pretty fast along this road and there are not any walkways a lot of the college kids kind of take a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The University of San Diego confirmed the victim was a student.<\/p>\n
In a statement, a university spokesperson said, \u201cThe University of San Diego campus community is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of one of our students who was struck early this morning by a vehicle near campus. Out of respect to the family, the university will not release the student\u2019s identity at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A University of San Diego student was fatally struck by a San Diego police vehicle early Wednesday morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,16852],"class_list":["post-365286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-university-of-san-diego"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365286","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=365286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}