70% of dirt streets are in two districts
term maintenance costs of those streets dates to 1979.
More than 70 percent of the unpaved streets are in Council Districts 4 and 8, two of the city’s most diverse and low-income districts.
District 8, which Moreno represents, includes Barrio Logan and communities near the Mexican border. District 4, represented by Councilwoman Monica Montgomery Steppe, includes much of Southeastern San Diego.
“When you have 70 percent of these streets in two districts, it brings up that issue of equity and how we have to take this funding and ensure that these streets are improved,” Montgomery Steppe said.
Residents and businesses near the roads deal
with excessive dust in warm months, flooding and mudslides during winters, and crater-like potholes throughout the year.
Perhaps more importantly, community leaders say the unimproved dirt streets and alleys can damage neighborhood pride and leave first-time visitors and
potential developers with negative images of the areas.
Council President Jennifer Campbell, who represents coastal District 2, noted that her neighborhoods have the third most miles of combined dirt streets and alleys.
“It’s a real problem,” she said. “When it rains, the
street floods and the water rolls over the sidewalks and the handicapped access ramps.”
Councilman Stephen Whitburn, who represents central urban District 3, said that while the problem is concentrated in low-income areas, it exists nearly everywhere.
“Many of these are short and tucked away, but they are in every single neighborhood of my district except for downtown,” he said.
Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera said there is perhaps no clearer instance of San Diego’s previously unequal policies needing to be fixed.
“This is such a clear equity issue it’s almost a case study in the way we should be making decisions and making corrections of bad policy in the past,” he said.
Adjacent property owners will remain responsible for maintaining the dirt streets, not the city, until they are upgraded and incorporated into the streets network.
Before the city can do any upgrades, nearby property owners will have to remove any unapproved upgrades they have made, such as retaining walls.
The wide range of cost estimates from $300 million to $900 million is partly because the streets vary so much in underlying materials, whether underground utilities have been installed, and other factors.
Another element of the variance is based on how significantly the city will upgrade each street. The highend estimate of $15 million per mile includes curbs, gutters and streetlights.
32%
Percentage of U.S. consumers who are Black and most likely to have experienced job loss as a result of the pandemic, Lincoln Financial Group’s Consumer Sentiment Tracker finds.