San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
BIKES GET BUFFER ON SECTIONS OF HIGHWAY 101 IN CARLSBAD
Parts of roadway painted with stripes to increase safety
Fresh green paint and white stripes have been added to parts of Carlsbad Boulevard, also known as the historic Highway 101, to make it safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
A short southbound section between Solomar Drive and Island Way near the beach was re-striped last week to create a single vehicle lane and make room for additional parking spaces and a buffered bike lane. Buffered bike lanes have a marked space to separate them from vehicle lanes.
Green paint was added at seven south Carlsbad intersections to highlight potential conflict points in areas shared by cyclists and motor vehicles, city officials said. Finishing touches will be added in the week ahead.
“I’m somewhere between mildly excited and giddy,” Carlsbad transportation director and city engineer Tom Frank said recently. “We’re giving more room to the active transportation users ... the cyclists ... and the pedestrians.”
The city accepted a grant of about $500,000 from the State Coastal Conservancy in 2020 to study the expected effects of sea-level rise and work with state agencies on potential changes including the possible realignment of south Carlsbad Boulevard.
The low-lying area between Palomar Airport Road and Poinsettia Lane is sometimes closed by storms and the highest tides of the year, after which city crews must remove sand, rocks and debris from the roadway.
“Coastal erosion and wave run-up are expected to be further exacerbated by future sea-level rise,” states a city staff report.
The city has proposed moving 1 mile of Carlsbad Boulevard’s southbound lanes, between Manzano Drive and Island Way, to the east to more closely parallel the northbound lanes. The northbound and southbound lanes are separated by a median up to 200 feet wide in that stretch.
The city also is considering a separate project to realign a larger area of about 3 miles of Carlsbad Boulevard from Palomar Airport Road south to La Costa Avenue at its border with Encinitas.
Three different layouts, including as many as three roundabouts, have been proposed for the overall realignment, which is still being developed.
All three options include converting the Manzano Drive to Island Way lanes nearest the beach into a wide trail for bicyclesandpedestrians.that would separate people on foot and the slower bicycles, such as beach cruisers, from the buffered bike trails used by faster cyclists along the highway.
South Carlsbad Boulevard is one of the busiest routes in San Diego County for bicycle riders. A survey in September 2021 showed it had about 800 riders on weekdays and more than 2,500 per day on weekends.
Oceanside, Encinitas and Solana Beach also have changed parts of the old Highway 101 to make it safer for bicycle riders and pedestrians.
As a federal highway in the 1950s, Carlsbad Boulevard carried up to 40,000 vehicles a day. Traffic dropped significantly after the construction of Interstate 5 in the 1960s, and today it carries less than 15,000 vehicles a day.