ENCINITAS — Twenty-four residences have had mail delivery suspended after the U.S. Post Office announced it will no longer service mail along portions of Santa Fe Drive due to “unsafe” road conditions.
The announcement came as a shock, but not a surprise to Mayor Bruce Ehlers, who was first informed of the situation in an interview with North County Pipeline on Thursday. He said the suspended service, among other safety concerns, is why the City Council pumped the brakes on the project in January.
An email from Carrie Mannon, supervisor of customer services for the Encinitas Post Office, confirmed those residents must pick up their mail as delivery is suspended. The city has reconfigured Santa Fe Drive from Gardena Road to Evergreen Drive east of Interstate 5, which has received significant backlash from residents, healthcare workers, businesses and motorists for months.
For now, residents must pick up their mail at the main post office on 1150 Garden View Rd. from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday.
Several weeks ago, North County Pipeline observed a postal worker delivering mail along Santa Fe Drive west of the Nardo Road intersection. The employee stopped the truck to deliver mail, but most of the truck was in the eastbound lane, and the passenger tires sat in the gutter.
The stretch of road is two lanes with segments reserved for turn lanes. It is also a sharrow lane for bicycles, while the official bike lane is painted on the sidewalk, which takes up at least half the sidewalk.
“Unfortunately, when the city of Encinitas did road improvements in your area, they made it unsafe for our mail carrier to deliver your mail with the current method of delivery,” Mannon’s email reads. “We have notified the city manager and requested that they follow Postal Regulation (sic) in providing the impacted residents with an alternate method of delivery. We expect you should hear from them directly while they work with our district in resolving the issue.”
Lois Yum, the city’s assistant to the city manager, said the city first received notices from residents in mid-February. Mannon’s email reached the city on Feb. 22 and the city is working to connect with the post office’s District Growth Department.
A message left for Mannon requesting comment was not returned.
Yum said the Operations Growth Office returned the message to the city last week and said their team “needs time to gather specific background information on the issue in order to be ready for a meeting.” She said no mailboxes were removed or relocated as part of the Santa Fe Corridor Project.
Yum said there is a wider sidewalk between the curb and mailboxes, but the city must hear from the post office and its exact concerns and how this can be remedied for their carriers. Council members Jim O’Hara and Joy Lyndes’ districts straddle Santa Fe Drive and O’Hara said the city is working toward a solution.
“They feel the city has created a dangerous design for their postal carriers,” Councilman Jim O’Hara said. “I can’t tell you the validity of it. I just started scratching the surface. They did send out a notice. I don’t know what will happen with that, but I’m sure it will get cleared up in some way.”
Lyndes, meanwhile, said the city coordinated with the post office throughout the Santa Fe project design and construction dating back to 2021. She said the post office never voiced concerns with the project or provided any feedback about issues with delivery.
Yum said the city sent 50% and 90% plans to the post office manager requesting comments on the design, but no comments were received. In addition, the city broke ground in January 2024, but had not received any concerns or complaints from the post office until this year, she said.
In addition, the city holds monthly City Utility Coordination meetings, which the post office representatives are invited to, and are an additional opportunity for coordination if there are issues. The post office has not sent a representative to and of those meetings, Lyndes said.
“Having heard around mid-February 2025 that some residents were needing to go to the post office for mail, we have reached out to the post office supervisor and the District Growth Department to get input and have been told that they are looking into it and they will get back to us,” she added. “The city work did not remove or relocate any existing mailboxes as part of the project. They were protected in place and are in the same locations as before.”
Lyndes said the sidewalks have been opened for public use since August/September of 2024 between MacKinnon to Gardena and Windsor to Evergreen. Also, there is now a wider sidewalk between the curb and the mailbox.
Reaction, future of Santa Fe
The City Council hit the brakes on any further construction several weeks ago after protests and complaints from dozens, if not hundreds, of residents, businesses and parents of students at San Dieguito Academy. State Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas), a former mayor of the city, spoke at the council meeting urging the council to move forward with the eastern phase after the City Council approved a construction contract in August 2024.
Blakespear secured $3.09 million from the state budget in 2023 to help fund the roughly $8 million project.
Ehlers was unaware of the issue on Thursday, but when he was told of the issue said he was not surprised. He said safety complaints, among others, were reasons why the council bifurcated the project during its Jan. 7 meeting and brought it to a safe stopping point for further analysis.
Work was supposed to be finished by the end of January, but delays have pushed the completion of the western phase until Monday, Ehlers said.
“We wanted to get all the orange cones down and then we are going to observe it during the school year … so we can see how it’s operating to see if there are systemic fixes required,” he explained. “We’re almost to the point of the two-month monitoring period. We will fix any safety issues, certainly, and any flow issues. My concern was more in line of getting emergency vehicles through.”
Ehlers said he’s seen enough of the project to assess there will be queuing issues at the school, while the lane widths are at the “absolute minimum” of 10 feet. The diagonal parking also poses concerns, especially with larger trucks, noting one truck stuck out 3 feet into the lane, he said.
“This is one of the main differences between the prior councils the last two administrations and the current one,” Ehlers said. “I think you’re going to find a much more pragmatic, get back to basics approach out of us.”
Santa Fe corridor
In January 2024, the city broke ground on the Santa Fe Corridor improvement project with the stated goal to “improve mobility for pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicular traffic, while also improving safety and connectivity.” The City Council approved the design contract award for the project in April 2020 with the council giving final approval in 2022.
The project has two phases — the western and eastern segments — starting at Gardena Road just east of I-5 and ending at El Camino Real.
The western portion from Nardo Road to Evergreen Drive includes protected bike lanes, angled parking, new sidewalks, a bus stop and pedestrian crossing to the school, raised planters between the bike lane and parking spaces, drainage and new gutters and driveways. The project also reduced the four-lane road to two lanes with a center lane for turns.
However, residents have loudly voiced displeasure with the new configuration. Those include narrow lanes forcing drivers to straddle the center double yellow line; narrow parking spaces with no safe exit and having to navigate the 8- to 10-inch raised planter beds and bike lane; and questionable right turns into driveways jeopardizing cyclists and pedestrians, to name a few.
The eastern phase, meanwhile, includes new separated bike paths, sidewalks, intersection improvements, stormwater management through new landscaping and trees and Green Street features including permeable surfaces, to name a few. This is phase, which was paused by the new City Council, runs from Evergreen Drive to El Camino Real.
Council taps city manager
The City Council unanimously approved hiring Jennifer Campbell as the permanent city manager during a closed session on Wednesday, Ehlers said. Campbell was the interim city manager after the resignation of City Manager Pam Antil in November.
Campbell was hired by the city of Encinitas in 2016 as the director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts. Previously, she was the assistant city manager in Glendale, Ariz.
Ehlers said Campbell “checked all the boxes” and the council will discuss her compensation package during the March 19 City Council meeting.
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