“Potholes”….you’re talking about…. “Potholes”….”Potholes”?!  This was the response I received recently when discussing my views on the downtown stadium. Yes I am talking about “Potholes”, because nothing reflects the truth about our failed city management more clearly than the crumbling roads we drive on every day in and around San Diego.

I will give you just three examples in my driving world….you can think of your own as well, I am sure.

1. Paseo Lucido in Rancho Bernardo: The road runs through an upscale neighborhood and is filled with potholes it’s entire length. Not only does it have potholes but there are three sewer covers in the center of the road, one right after another, that are raised a good four inches each. Hit that cover going thirty five…I did it once… and you risk major tire and or front end damage and even a possible swerve into oncoming traffic.
2. Highway 52 in San Diego: If you are driving West, toward La Jolla, you will hit the dips…not easy dips… but big, camouflaged, car jarring dips. The right lane has a dip that when you hit it going 60 it feels like you hit a six inch curb…bad feeling on your front end, very bad feeling. These dips have been there forever and just getting so so dangerous.
3. Bernardo Heights Parkway: The road runs west to east from Bernardo Center Drive all the way to Pomerado Rd, It was partially re done a few years ago with a nice, new, blacktop looking really good…really good. The problem no one has bothered to fix is when driving up this parkway the left lane has three really big dips which do a nice number on your shocks and front end. It should never have been approved. Looks nice…drives really dangerous.

Now as for the new stadium the Chargers want to build downtown; I am 100% for it. You might ask the logical question….”how can you support the city spending money on the stadium when they cannot fix their roads”?  Good question but irrelevant. You are talking apples and oranges, bananas and avocados, strawberries and grapes.

You see the city cannot fix the roads because the street department is poorly run, there is normal bureaucratic waste, and because they have pushed out the workload until it is now overwhelming. They run around dropping black top patch work and for each pothole they patch three new ones appear. There should be a bigger budget for street repairs but until you fix the other problems it is simply throwing good money after bad.

The stadium is at least a partial answer to the problem. When the stadium is constructed downtown there will be a slew of new roads as well as a  major rebuilding of the existing roads. If we want some of the downtown roads repaired then we need to build the stadium. Think like this folks….new stadium….new roads. That is the way government works. Build big expensive projects and the crumbs will spill over for the rest of us…smooth driving soon!