30th Street Bike Lanes Set Another Record for Riders

The protected bike lanes on 30th Street, which run through North Park and South Park between Adams Avenue and Juniper Street, recorded their 100,000th rider of the year this summer, the earliest that milestone has been hit since the lanes opened. The lanes are averaging over 400 riders per day, a 12% increase over last year and almost triple the 136 daily riders in 2020, the last full year before the new lanes were put in.

The protected bikeways were originally approved in 2019 as part of a resurfacing project following a major water-main replacement. The project survived political blowback from neighborhood organizations and a lawsuit. The city has heralded the lanes’ successes every year. And it is pushing forward on other bikeway projects.

After five years, the bike lanes are considered a part of the community, although they aren’t universally loved. This Times of SD story, published earlier this year after the city released full 2025 ridership numbers, shows that some businesses still complain about lost parking while bicyclists and the head of the North Park Planning Committee trumpet the lanes’ ongoing success.

San Diego deserves credit for growing its bicycle and pedestrian network in conjunction with other infrastructure work. The city sees a chance to improve street striping with every resurfacing opportunity, whether slurry, overlay, or after a pipeline project. Compare that to Los Angeles, where voters passed Measure HLA requiring the City of Angels to follow a similar policy. Instead, LADOT and the city’s Bureau of Streets Services use tricks to avoid implementing the law.

San Diego has over 1,100 miles of bikeway. This includes 80 miles of off-street paths and 85 miles of protected bikeway.

“The City’s relentless pursuit of asset management by resurfacing and operational efficiency have contributed to our ability to continue to deliver high quality bikeways all across the City,” said Naomi Chavez, Transportation Department Interim Director. 

However, there’s a downside to using road resurfacing to build a bike network. A recent report by BikeSD and researchers at San Diego State University demonstrates how this strategy has led to a network with big gaps. 

Building lanes just wherever city resurfacing happens to take place means the network grows in the order the pavement crews show up, not in the order riders most need it. The result, per that report, is a system where roughly 700 miles of facilities exist, but much of it remains disconnected or high-stress i.e. protected infrastructure is missing from more than 95% of corridors like Euclid Avenue and Genesee Avenue, even as those streets carry the most bike traffic and the worst collision rates.

But the 30th Street project shows that when the city makes full investments, it pays off. The 30th street lanes are part of a growing network in North and South Park, some of the city’s densest neighborhoods. Past and future projects in the area connecting to the corridor include the Georgia-Meade Bikeway, Landis Bikeway, and Howard Bikeway. The Pershing Bikeway is also just a couple of blocks away, providing easy access for bicyclists heading downtown.