Bike and pedestrian safety staffing
The mayor’s initial budget proposed eliminating the multimodal team of traffic engineers who design safe bike infrastructure, sparking extensive public comment that the team is critical for bike and pedestrian safety. Council budget discussions included support for redirecting a small amount of road-repaving funds to keep the team, illustrating tension between road paving and active-transportation design capacity.
Should San Diego maintain a dedicated multimodal traffic-engineer team for bike and pedestrian safety?
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Sources
Public commenters at budget review committee (via KPBS) — https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/06/09/san-diego-city-council-looks-to-close-15-3-million-gap-going-into-tuesdays-budget-vote
At least 12 speakers asked council members to restore this funding, saying it was critical for bike and pedestrian safety.
KPBS Public Media — https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/06/09/san-diego-city-council-looks-to-close-15-3-million-gap-going-into-tuesdays-budget-vote
eliminating the multimodal team of traffic engineers who design safe bike infrastructure... City Council members were supportive of an idea to redirect a small amount of road repaving funds to maintain the multimodal team
Positions on this issue · liberal → conservative
- Expand multimodal staffing and shift major funding from car-centric paving to bike/ped projects
- Fully restore and protect the multimodal team as essential safety infrastructure
- Keep a smaller multimodal team funded by minor repaving reallocations
- Fold bike/ped work into general engineering and prioritize road repaving
- Eliminate specialized multimodal positions and focus spending on vehicle road repair