Proposal to extend parking time on stretch of Fay Avenue will return to La Jolla traffic board

A proposal to extend the time limit for parking spaces along Fay Avenue between Silverado and Kline streets will return to the La Jolla Traffic & Transportation Board next month after board members and others expressed confusion about the issue.

Keith Kelman, who owns two businesses on Fay Avenue, spoke at the board’s virtual meeting Feb. 15 about a request to double the time limit to two hours from one.

One-hour parking “does cause some angst with many of the patrons of the street,” Kelman said.

Lengthening the parking time would mean customers of the restaurants on the block “can have a more leisurely [meal] and also be able to visit a couple of businesses,” Kelman said.

Currently, Fay Avenue has dozens of spaces marked for one-hour parking between Silverado and Kline. Spaces are angled along the east side of the street and parallel along the west side.

Kelman said fellow business owner Jason Peaslee, who runs The Cottage restaurant on Fay at Kline, circulated a petition in support of the change, but it “wasn’t real clear to everyone” and didn’t garner a lot of signatures, Kelman said.

Now, he said, a new petition will instead ask merchants on the block whether they’d like the parking time limit to remain one hour or be changed to 90 minutes.

The 90-minute option was chosen instead of two hours because a general survey indicated people were more comfortable with a 90-minute limit, and 90 minutes would help discourage employee parking on the street, Kelman said.

Traffic & Transportation Chairman Brian Earley said Peaslee and Kelman will need to obtain the signatures of 51 percent of “fronting business owners” on the street.

Kelman said he counted 80 businesses along that block of Fay — including those in small shopping centers that don’t face the sidewalk but extend west toward Eads Avenue — and asked for a clearer definition of “fronting.”

He noted that the original petition contained 19 signatures.

Earley said he understood “fronting business owners” to mean “businesses that are operating right on the sidewalk … rather than a commercial building.”

Steve Hadley, representing the office of City Councilman Joe LaCava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla, said he would ask traffic engineers for more clarification on the definition of “fronting.”

T&T board member Patrick Ryan said he wanted to “make sure everyone on the board understands [that] when you increase the amount of time that vehicles park, you reduce the number of visitors available in the area.”

Lengthening the parking limit on that block to two hours would mean 93 fewer cars could use the spaces each day, Ryan said.

It’s important to consider whether “we want more people [or] fewer people for longer,” he said.

The board voted unanimously to continue the item to its March 15 meeting, and Kelman said he and Peaslee will return then with the results of the new petition.

Crosswalk request

La Jollan Barry Rosenbush says this intersection at Prospect Street and La Jolla Boulevard is dangerous.

(Barry Rosenbush)

During public comments at the meeting, La Jolla resident Barry Rosenbush asked that T&T take up his request that the city restripe the pedestrian crossings at the intersection of Prospect Street and La Jolla Boulevard and add flashing beacons.

Rosenbush, who moved to La Jolla a few months ago and lives next to the intersection, said “this is an extraordinarily dangerous, heavily trafficked, poorly marked [intersection with] no signage except for the stop signs and two yellow crosswalks.”

“Every day there are a screeching of brakes [and] near misses,” Rosenbush said. He added that the issue is compounded by weekday student traffic from The Bishop’s School and weekend tourist traffic.

Rosenbush said he has spoken with LaCava and Hadley about the matter and created a report on San Diego’s Get It Done app, requesting a change to brighter striping and the addition of an automated signal with flashing lights.

“I would hope the city would look favorably upon putting in this flashing-light crosswalk,” Rosenbush said.

Earley said he would work with Rosenbush to push the item forward for possible consideration at a future meeting. ◆