Safety Improvements for Hoover High Students on El Cajon Blvd
Students using the expanded sidewalk at the corner of El Cajon Blvd and Chamoune Ave.
Last August saw thousands of students in San Diego return to school, and our local Hoover High students returned to some exciting new traffic calming efforts along El Cajon Boulevard.
The majority of the student population walk to school through City Heights—a historically excluded community that suffers from disproportionate traffic violence. However, to their surprise upon returning to school, students realized that their walk looked completely different thanks to our Safe Routes to School initiative.
We are happy to share that the intersections along Fairmont Avenue and El Cajon Blvd as well as Chamoune Avenue and El Cajon Blvd (the routes most utilized by Hoover Students to walk to school) all saw transportation justice improvements that will make it safer and easier to talk to Hoover High due to the implementation of traffic safety improvements! These improvements saw widening of sidewalks, and the installment of Leading Pedestrian Intervals (which prioritize pedestrians over cars at crosswalk intersections) among other improvements. Here’s the full list of safety improvements:
-New Pedestrian Refuge and Crossing directly in front of Hoover
-Pop outs at Chamoune and El Cajon Blvd as well as 45th and El Cajon Blvd, both of which will reduce Pedestrian Crossing Distance, Improve Visibility, and Calm Traffic
-Widened Sidewalks
-Pedestrian Countdown Signals
Hoover Alumni and City Heights CDC Community Engagement Manager at CHCDC Jesse Ramirez noted “The improvement made for this school year will allow for students at Hoover to get to school safely. Traffic violence should not be normalized. We deserve safe streets to walk the community and get to school.”
City Heights CDC would like to thank Mr. Voeltner and his Hoover students, the Boulevard Business Association, the Little Saigon Foundation, and the City Heights Built Environment Team for their advocacy efforts on the “Hoover High Pedestrian Safety on El Cajon Blvd” project and the “Complete the Boulevard” study which helped identify these improvements and make them into reality.
El Cajon Boulevard is now closer to being a complete street that is safe for everyone! We celebrate this new infrastructure and recognize that more traffic safety improvements are still needed.
