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The New Spine of Downtown posted on November 29, 2007

C Street is poised to join downtown’s redevelopment frenzy, but not until a divisive public transit issue is resolved

The Gaslamp Quarter and East Village are cornerstones of downtown San Diego’s rebirth. But while those areas are teeming with small businesses and pedestrians who want to soak up the charm, C Street—mere blocks from the Gaslamp—has been riddled with blight.

Storefronts are vacant, buildings are boarded up, tenants have all but disappeared, and pedestrians are nowhere in sight. Attorney Bill Sauls, who has rented an office on C Street for 18 years, says he has seen C Street go from bad to worse. “As redevelopment activity occurred in downtown, everything gravitated to the nicer rede¬veloped areas.” The result? Issues such as crime, cleanliness and safety plague the corridor, while lack of workers, residents and visitors remain a constant.

Thus was born the C Street Master Plan, an initiative to make C Street just as much a part of downtown’s core as the rest of its booming parts. The area in question runs 17 blocks from India Street to Park Boulevard and is home to the trolley. Spearheaded by the Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC), the master plan also includes the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and the Downtown San Diego Partnership as key decision makers.

Future Snapshot
Sachin Kalbag, senior urban designer at CCDC, believes that the poor planning of the trolley and the trolley stations along C Street have contributed to its current problems, as well as the street’s disorientating nature. Cars can travel in only one direction between certain streets, and the space where cars can’t travel is relegated to a pedestrian mall.

Kalbag points out that pedestrian malls have largely failed throughout the United States. “It just takes cars off the streets,” he says. And the road less traveled translates to more crime: According to the police department, the highest crime on C Street occurs where there are no automobile lanes.

“So the big vision of the master plan is to tie C Street back into the city grid,” adds Kalbag. That includes adding east and west automobile lanes along the entire stretch of C Street.

Also as part of the vision are upgrades to the streetscape environment, as well as alfresco dining, boutique shopping and residential spilling over from East Village. With all of that activity, C Street can be an attractive pillar of downtown.

“C Street could be a really valuable addition to the city, and certainly a place that is more comfortable for small businesses to relocate on,” says Barbara Warden, president of the Downtown Partnership.

Kalbag emphasizes that with cars traveling in both directions and pedestrians feeling safe on C Street, the thoroughfare will become downtown’s great east/west connector, linking pedestrians to Park Boulevard and City College on the east end, and North Embarcadero on the west end.

“The idea is that you have this seamless pedestrian experience, and a wonderful way for pedestrians to move across the city,” says Kalbag. “It can be the spine of downtown.”

It’s All About Compromise
Flash back to the present day, and there’s one impediment to moving forward: the trolley system. More specifically, the technicalities of redesigning an efficient trolley system that also supports an optimal revitalization plan.

C Street’s revitalization is certainly long overdue, but while MTS and SANDAG’s primary concern is in the trolley function, CCDC and the Downtown Partnership are focused on the overall redevelopment. This makes for some conflicting interests. “It would be great if it all worked easily, but if there were no hard decisions to be made, then it wouldn’t be a real project,” says Barrow Emerson, senior transit planner of SANDAG.

Case in point: When the idea of a continuous drive lane was presented, it didn’t set well with MTS. The travel lane was intended to go on the south side of the street so it’s more intuitive for drivers, but that would push both the trolley’s tracks and stations northward. “We did compromise on the north alignment,” says Paul Jablonski, CEO of MTS. “If the community wants a travel lane, then we’ll go along with that.”

For CCDC’s part, the organization had to make its own concessions as well. Because MTS has to think about its need to grow, due to ever-increasing ridership, the transit team wants to use the new, low-floor three-car trains, and each one is 10 feet longer than the trolleys on C Street today.

To accommodate the longer trains, the project would entail narrowing two lanes on Sixth and Seventh avenues, relocating the Fifth Avenue station to sit between Sixth and Seventh, and upgrading the traffic signal system to ensure trolleys don’t block streets if they are stopped between stations (the trolley takes up 275 feet, while the blocks are 244 feet), among other technicalities.

Still, CCDC concurred for the sake of com¬¬promise and getting the project off the ground.

Finding the Right Balance
There is one catch: The three-car trains are only a short-term solution. MTS’s long-term plan is to run four-car trains along C Street, so blocking streets would become inevitable. SANDAG’s Emerson contends that it’s not the end of the world. “Imagine when a trolley was blocking a street, there’s just a red light in that direction.”

But Kalbag and his constituencies disagree. After all, why spend $100 million—the estimated total cost of the project—to design a brand-new corridor and still have to substantially block north-south traffic.

Enter the loop study, which is looking at whether it makes sense to run shorter two-car trolleys along C Street at frequent intervals, like a shuttle system, while running the three- or four-car trains on the main lines around downtown. Although MTS was reluctant, the group did agree to let CCDC study the loop concept.

The study is a point of contention because on one hand, the shuttle system would require transfers—ultimately upsetting riders—but on the other hand, having to transfer trolley lines is the reality of growing up as a city.

While disagreements are part of any master planning effort, everyone agrees that their interests, above all, are to figure out how the transit system, the pedestrian walkways, automobile circulation and all of the desired activity on C Street can work together. And Kalbag, who says they’ll make a decision by year’s end, is confident they’ll choose correctly for the future of the downtown core.

 

The 10-Year Vision
With all the improvements taking place in the next 10 years on the C Street corridor, it just might become the link between some of downtown’s newest attractions. Here’s a sneak peak at what’s on the map:

On C Street’s East End
• Park-to-Bay Link: A $30 million public improvement project located along Park Boulevard between C and K streets.
• San Diego City College: A multimillion-dollar initiative to revamp the campus, including integration with Park Boulevard to solidify the City College’s “front door” experience.

On C Street’s West End
• North Embarcadero Visionary Plan: An estimated $228 million revitalization project to transform downtown’s “front porch” into a magnificent public esplanade.
• Navy Broadway Complex: Within North Embarcadero is the proposed redevelopment of this former Navy property.
• 700 West Broadway: The Irvine Co.’s 685,000-square-foot high-rise, the largest single office tower in the city’s core, at Broadway and Pacific Highway.