SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced his proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 on Wednesday, signaling possible cuts to some controversial bike lane projects to help balance the city's budget.
While the city's transportation budget is set to increase, the proposal eliminates the multimodal team, also known as the bike lane team, which is responsible for planning and designing bike lanes.
"Some bike lane projects will be scaled back while we focus on the most critical traffic safety improvements," Gloria said.
The San Diego Bike Coalition thinks the proposal is a step back on the city's Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic-related deaths and serious injuries.
"We overall are deeply disappointed by the suggestion to try and balance the budget on the back of bike projects," Ian Hembree, advocacy and community manager for the San Diego Bike Coalition, said.
In the proposed budget, the city still aims to design 40 miles of bike lanes in the next fiscal year.
"If he chooses to fire these people that are in charge of designing these projects we're gonna be set back years to build these projects that that people want that that people want," Hembree said.
The potential cuts come almost five years after bike lanes on 30th Street in North Park were finished. The lanes replaced hundreds of parking spaces to make it safer for cyclists. Similar bike lane projects have happened throughout the city.
The loss of parking impacted businesses like Overload skate shop.
"It's definitely slowed down. I've even heard jokes of North Park being called No Park because it's so tough to find parking," Brian Kelly, general manager of Overload skate shop, said.
Kelly thinks a pause on more bike lanes is not a bad idea.
"I wish they would take this bike lane away and give us our parking back," said Kelly
Wednesday's budget proposal is just the first step in a long budget process. Residents will be able to give their feedback, and the budget can be revised. A final budget has to be adopted by June 15th.
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