ENCINITAS GETS $3M FROM STATE FOR TRAFFIC SAFETY PROJECT
Mother of student killed while on e-bike speaks at ceremony
Standing in front of San Dieguito Academy the morning of Sept. 21, Clare Champlain said her 15-yearold son, Brody Champlain Kingman, should be in school right now.
But while riding his ebike to school on El Camino Real one afternoon last June, Brody died after a collision with a van.
“Wearing his helmet, knowing the rules of the road, signaling clearly on that tragic day was not enough to keep him safe,” Champlain said.
Champlain joined local officials for a ceremony in which state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, presented the city of Encinitas $3.09 million from the state budget for the Santa Fe Drive Corridor Improvement Project.
“We have to do better for Brody and prioritize the safety of our bikers,” Champlain said. “We, as a community, have to change with the changing times and join the many cities investing in improving bike infrastructure. E-bikes are not going away.”
Blakespear, in her first term in the Senate after six years as Encinitas mayor, added that the city has been designing the Santa Fe Drive project since 2017. It also has $4 million in funding from the city’s general fund.
“People do die on our streets if we don’t design safer streets,” Blakespear said. “That commitment is what animates so many of the road projects that are done in the city of Encinitas and throughout the state of California.”
The Santa Fe Drive Corridor Improvement Project includes separated bicycle lanes, buffered bike lanes, improvements to sidewalks and bus stops, landscaping, storm drains and parking. The project is set to break ground later this year.
The project is part of a larger trend of cities taking action to improve traffic safety over the last several years as e-bikes have soared in popularity, with a commensurate increase in collisions involving e-bikes.
In response to Brody’s death, the Encinitas City Council enacted an emergency resolution with the goal of improving traffic safety. In 2022, the city of Carlsbad also declared a local emergency after Christine Embree, 35, was killed in a collision with a car while riding an e-bike. The driver of the car was charged with manslaughter.
One increasingly popular safety measure has been a diversion program, in which sheriff’s deputies allow ebike riders to complete a safety course after receiving citations. Encinitas adopted a diversion program in June, a week before the collision that killed Brody, and Solana Beach recently followed suit.
Deputy David Drake has said that bicycle and e-bike safety enforcement in the North Coastal area has focused primarily on local schools and has helped improve helmet wearing. He added that an ongoing problem has been riders with passengers on e-bikes that are not designed for multiple people.
Encinitas Mayor Tony Kranz said during the news conference that he’s seen growing support over the years for infrastructure upgrades aimed at making the roads friendlier for more than just cars.
“The importance of taking our legacy infrastructure and creating an environment where young and old alike could make a choice to get out of their cars and get around town in a different way is very important,” he said.