Encinitas approves Santa Fe Drive redesign
A 4-1 vote to remove reverse‑angled parking and protected bike lanes defies pushback from former Mayor Blakespear and deepens community divisions over safety and street design
ENCINITAS — A politically charged battle over Santa Fe Drive ended Wednesday with the City Council approving a major redesign of the corridor, defying calls from former Mayor Catherine Blakespear and igniting fresh divisions among some residents and city leaders.
In a 4-1 vote, the council backed a $459,398 design contract with Michael Baker International to overhaul the project by removing reverse-angled parking and the protected bike lanes. Supporters cited safety hazards, emergency response delays, and a U.S. Postal Service halt to mail delivery, while critics called the move a “vendetta” and questioned the city’s survey data and argued the current configuration is safer and more functional.
Santa Fe has been a flashpoint for more than two years, as it was developed under former Mayor Catherine Blakespear, who is now a state senator, and broke ground in 2023. Blakespear sent a message to several council members urging them not to approve the redesign, while the California Coastal Commission also sent the city a letter stating, in part, that the redesign may have to be cleared through the commission.
“You are getting on the path to spend more than $4 million to rip out a lovely, safe, brand new road improvement project that is highly functioning and generates no complaints (design costs are 10% of construction costs),” Blakespear’s message reads. “The high school admin (sic) and families living nearby want it kept. You aren’t solving any existing problem. Please don’t waste tax payer (sic) money on this misguided effort.”
Blakespear oversaw the project’s 2022 approval, and it broke ground in 2023 on the Santa Fe Western Phase from Interstate 5 to Evergreen Drive. The eastern phase of the project is still on track to be constructed, although some modifications are likely to be included, Councilman Jim O’Hara said.
Councilwoman Joy Lyndes voted no as she argued for the “improve, don’t remove” concept, stating the project has been a success and delivered a safer street.
The contractor will use a baseline concept, first proposed by Councilman Jim O’Hara last year. Staff said the new design will remove reverse-angled parking and replace it with parallel parking along the sidewalk, remove the protected bike lanes (cycle track) and replace them with an eastbound Class 2 buffered lane, and widen travel lanes to 11 feet.
The travel lanes are currently between 9.5 feet and 10 feet, and many residents and drivers have complained that it forces vehicles to veer into the middle of the road. The cost estimates for the redesign range between $4 million and $5 million.
Former Mayor Tony Kranz ripped the council for its position on the redesign and used the mistakes from the contractor to gin up controversy. He said parallel parking is similar to reverse-angled parking with one less turn, and is safe, while the council and those complaining suffer from “car brain.”
Kranz said the project has slowed traffic and reduced accidents because people are driving more slowly. He said lane width is critical, and if it gets wider, it becomes less safe.
Additionally, when Ehlers voted for the project, design immunity was established, and what created liability was Ehlers on the dais speaking against the current design.
Kranz also criticized an unscientific city survey and vocal opponents for taking over prudent fiscal policy. He said it will cost millions to reconstruct, and spending that money takes away from Leucadia and providing a safer pathway to cross the railroad tracks.
“The eastern part of Santa Fe sucks, you should be working on that project because there are no bike facilities between Balour (Drive) and El Camino Real. It’s a shame that you’re spending this money. Bruce, I heard you say, on tape, that this is a risky political move and I’m here to make sure it’s as costly as possible for you.”
Jeremy Blakespear, husband of Catherine Blakespear, was pointed in his criticisms of the council and said the current project is a value-add for the city, and the course change is bad governance. He stressed he didn’t design the project, but the project has something for everyone, and changing it now would be malicious.
“I’m here … to call out your effort to destroy the Santa Fe streetscape project for what it is, a petty and wasteful vendetta against my wife, Sen. Catherine Blakespear, and the former council members and community leaders who have supported the numerous improvements to biking and walking infrastructure in the city.”
Other speakers said the city never engaged with San Dieguito Academy or other school officials, while the new process lacks community input and is reversing progress, to name a few.
Supporters of the redesign, such as resident Natalie Settoon, showed the council documents of serious collisions resulting from the project. She said there was an incident on Saturday, two serious traumatic injuries in April and June of 2025, respectively, while another man was thrown from his bike after hitting uneven pavement in the bike lane, leading to serious injuries and a five-day hospital stay in the fall.
Lyndes took issue with the city’s survey, which was conducted last spring after the council paused construction and fired the contractor. She also expressed concern about the Class 2 bike lane, as it would put cyclists between parked cars and moving traffic.
Additionally, during a special meeting last year, there were more than 121 pages of public comment with 90% support for the current configuration.
She said the contractor “exited” the project, and then the city asked the public what they thought of the job. Lyndes said the issue was that there were construction cones and barriers on the road, signals were not timed, bike path transitions were not built (and still aren’t), the bus stop was incomplete, stormwater and fire retention basins were roped off, and parking spaces were barricaded. This is when the city surveyed the project, she claimed.
“In the middle of that unfinished, inconvenient, and highly frustrating situation, we asked residents for their opinion. Of course, they were upset. It was that survey that this City Council uses to justify this item.”
However, O’Hara called out the order of those claims and demanded a retraction as they were false. He said the project area was cleared, and then the city monitored the project for two months, gathering feedback from residents.
Other concerns, O’Hara said, include those from school representatives and an SDA principal who worked with the council’s school committee every two weeks. He said Venture Church wants it fixed, as does the Bobby Riggs Racket and Paddle Club, while a doctor told the council about the struggles getting to Scripps Encinitas.
Ehlers said the protected bike lanes and segments of angled parking create dangerous right hook turns into driveways. He said sometimes those views are blocked by larger vehicles and jeopardize the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.
O’Hara and Ehlers said two of the biggest indicators the road is not safe come from the Encinitas Fire Department and the U.S. Post Office. The fire department is calling for wider lanes, as when engines or ladder trucks turn onto Santa Fe Drive, those vehicles turn into oncoming traffic, while the narrower design doesn’t allow for other emergency vehicles to navigate through the corridor, especially at peak times, Ehlers said.
The post office, meanwhile, suspended residential mail delivery last year, as first reported by North County Pipeline. Several months later, the post office installed three cluster boxes at various locations so residents can access their mail instead of driving to the post office for pickup.
“There were a lot of words put in my mouth,” Ehlers added. “We have to remove the most hated portion of this. The U.S. Post Office refused to deliver mail to houses on this street. That’s not politics. Emergency vehicles cannot pass during peak periods. That’s why we have the buffered lanes. Trucks and buses are cheating into the center by about 18 inches.”
Councilman Luke Shaffer said the city has 165 lane miles, and the fight is over a quarter-mile stretch of land. He said the current design is inconsistent and is not fair to the drivers and cyclists who have to maneuver through those inconsistencies, limiting predictability.
He said it’s important for all users to be able to anticipate a cyclist’s movements, a car’s movements, and the more consistent the city can be across Encinitas with its infrastructure, the better it will be.
As for the Coastal Commission, San Diego District Manager Diana Lily sent an email to staff on Feb. 23 outlining the potential for an appeal to the project. Staff concluded the project modifications are assumed to “substantially conform to the original entitlements” and are not anticipated to require revisions from the Coastal Development Permit (CDP) or Design Review Permit, and should qualify as an exemption.
She said, considering the high degree of public interest in the project, Lily wanted to be clear with staff and the council that any exemption claim can be appealed to the commission by any “applicant, any aggrieved person, or any two members of the commission.”
“In order to make the process as transparent as possible to the public and decision-makers, the City Council may want to consider taking a specific action to exempt the revisions from CDP requirements, separate from any action to authorize the award of a contract or similar approval,” she wrote. “Either way, please notify Commission (sic) staff if an action that exempts the development takes place. Please understand that should the action be appealed, Section 30623 of the Coastal Act stays the operation and effect of that action pending a decision on appeal. As such, the City (sic) should not finalize any contract, undertake development, etc., until the appeal period is over and resolved.”
Send story ideas and tips to ncpipeline760@gmail.com. Follow North County Pipeline on Instagram, Facebook, X and Reddit.