Leucadia!

On this section of our tour of Leucadia’s coastal corridor, we
have just walked past the Bar Leucadian and are now at the empty lot at
the corner of …

Voice of San Diego story about Encinitas artist making our town groovy for yuppies and then getting driven out by high rents. There is no mention of the 80k a year Arts Director.

Encinitas, Too Cool for the Cool
By SUSAN GRANT Voice Staff Writer

Monday, June 25, 2007 | Downtown Encinitas can’t be accused of lacking creative flavor. From the mosaic tile trash cans lining the streets to the gold-and-blue domed Self-Realization Fellowship Temple that twinkles with thousands of lights during the winter holidays, the town is filled with color and flair.

“There’s an artist of some kind behind every other door around here,” said Barbara Milé, an Encinitas native and former city art commissioner.

The revitalization of the downtown area over the last decade has brought business and tourism to the area. Boutique clothing shops, gardening supply stores and hair salons now fill the city’s downtown area.

However, that boom has also raised rent to the point that the community artists are having a hard time affording gallery space in the very area they helped define. “It works against us in a way because when the town is revitalized, the rent goes up,” said local artist Donna Butnik.

Aesthetic and structural improvements made to the downtown area of old Encinitas are part of a revitalization program run by the Downtown Encinitas MainStreet Association. More than $23 million went toward the development of new shopping centers, streetscape renovations and art-specific programs such as the Arts Alive street banners. In 2004, DEMA received a Great American Main Street Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The association was praised for having “successfully harnessed the community’s artistic spirit to develop an arts niche.”

Since 1997, the rate for a commercial space in the popular shopping center The Lumberyard has doubled from $1.50 a square foot to about $3.
When I was a kid I heard that a waterspout came ashore and blew through one of our mobile home parks. If the story was true I think we would have heard more about that because the residents of our parks are a penetrating part of our community. Such a loss would have wounded Leucadia. The residents of the parks have a great appreciation for Leucadia and they are involved in helping our community.

On Monday evening there will be a workshop on the city’s mobile home park study.
The traffic report presented to the city council this week gave a partly cloudy forecast for Encinitas traffic. The forecast was based on very optimistic projections for I5 traffic flow in 2030. The city’s consultant, who worked very closely with city staff, said that a lot of the city’s traffic problems would be alleviated once “freeway avoidance” traffic (a.k.a cut-through) got back on the freeway and off our streets. They said that was going to happen by 2030 because the I5 expansion will be complete by then.

Turns out that there might not be any sun in our forecast. Two days after the city’s administration tried to slide the traffic report past the public the North County Times reported on a study that SANDAG just released. From that article,

“On the coast, solo commute times would improve [in 2030]. The trip from Oceanside to downtown San Diego would shrink slightly, from 76 minutes to 70.

As for car-pool trips down I-5, those would improve significantly, from the current average of 69 minutes to 48 minutes, the plan states. The typical transit trip would go from 93 minutes to 77.”
Folks, if San Diego’s population continues to boom cut-through traffic is not going to vanish in our lifetime. Jerome Stocks must have know that there was an inconsistency between the city’s traffic report and SANDAG’s study. Stocks is on the council traffic study subcommittee and he sits on SANDAG.
The Planning Commission is meeting Thursday evening, June 21 to discuss several rezones that may interest you. Read the NCT.com story for full details:
Encinitas plan amendments would change law of land

And, tonight at the city council meeting there will be a discussion about our new, frustrating gridlock we are experiencing. We’ve had hints of this gridlock coming for the last five years but it is now finally becoming an all day/everyday event. Many of you readers warned about this gridlock for years and years but were brushed off as paranoid chicken littles by the powers that be.

The Leucadia 101 Mainstreet Association will be making a plea to the city council tonight to please do something about the increasingly dangerous and dysfunctional Leucadia coast highway corridor, aka The Gauntlet.

NBCsandiego.com story (with video) about traffic and the city council meeting story video
ENCINITAS — A traffic plan headed to the City Council on Wednesday proposes stoplights, signals and roundabouts to relieve the congestion that clogs Rancho Santa Fe Road every work day.

“I’ve been a longtime proponent of getting Rancho Santa Fe Road fixed,” Mayor James Bond said Monday. “It’s broken right now.”

The traffic study examines Rancho Santa Fe Road in the Olivenhain community and several other thoroughfares.

The study concludes that most roads can meet the demands future development will place upon them through 2030.

In addition to fixes for Rancho Santa Fe Road, the traffic plan calls for widening segments of Encinitas Boulevard. Freeway ramps also would require upgrades.

No action is scheduled for the meeting that will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at 505 S. Vulcan Ave.

Read the rest of Adam Kaye’s NCT.com story:

Traffic plan heads to Encinitas council

In addition to Rancho Santa Fe Road, the city is considering roundabout controls at freeway interchanges, the report states.

Some of the city’s busiest roads should be widened, the report states. The roads include:

# El Camino Real, six lanes from Encinitas Boulevard to Manchester Avenue.

# Manchester Avenue, six lanes from El Camino Real to Interstate 5.

# Encinitas Boulevard, eight lanes from Interstate 5 to Saxony Road.

# Encinitas Boulevard, six lanes from Saxony Road to Balour Drive.

# Encinitas Boulevard, six lanes from Via Cantebria to El Camino Real.

# Encinitas Boulevard, six lanes from El Camino Real to Village Square.

# Olivenhain Road, six lanes from El Camino Real to Amargosa Street.

# Olivenhain Road, six lanes from Amargosa to Rancho Santa Fe Road.

# La Costa Avenue, four lanes from Interstate 5 to North Coast Highway 101.

The city in 2003 commissioned Santa Ana-based Austin-Fourst Associates Inc. to prepare the study. Many of the traffic counts it contains were taken that year. To date, the city has paid $132,154 for the document.