17 miles, 85 years: How San Diego plans to fix unpaved roads (2024)

The city of San Diego has a plan to fix its unpaved streets and alleys, but you might not live long enough to see it happen.

A report published earlier this year estimated that the city has 17 miles of dirt or otherwise unpaved roads in its vast network of streets. To fix them, staff has proposed addressing two road “segments” at a time — a process that would take 85 years to complete.

Though a small part of the more than 6,000 miles that the city maintains, data that inewsource obtained shows some of the unpaved roads and alleys are not just in industrial areas. They’re also in residential neighborhoods, including historically underserved areas that San Diego officials themselves describe as “communities of concern.”

Unpaved roads are found across much of San Diego. About five miles — or nearly one-third of the city’s unpaved roads — are in District 2, which includes Ocean Beach, Point Loma and Mission Bay Park.

Just one council district doesn’t have dirt roads: District 5, which includes northern parts of the city from Scripps Ranch to San Pasqual.

Valencia Park resident Joel Navar called the city’s decades-long timeline to make the upgrades “ridiculous.”

“I don’t think it’s fair, or right or even close to reality,” he said.

Navar’s home, just east of the intersection of Imperial and Euclid avenues, sits in a neighborhood that is neither new nor rural. It’s surrounded by other houses and businesses. Yet he and others who live there must drive regularly on a dirt alley that he says he has been pleading with the city to pave.

Navar said he first complained about the alley to city staff a several years ago. He submitted a complaint on the city’s “Get It Done” reporting system again in April.

In lieu of the city’s attention, he said he and his neighbors have had to maintain the road themselves, such as filling potholes. A map of street projects shows the alley is not scheduled for any upcoming repairs.

City Councilmember Henry Foster III, who represents Navar’s neighborhood and others in southeast San Diego such as Paradise Hills, Skyline and Mountain View, said the district has suffered from “decades of disinvestment.”

Foster joined the council in April. He previously served as chief of staff for Monica Montgomery Steppe, who left the seat after being elected to the county Board of Supervisors.

The city should “re-evaluate” its pavement plan and prioritize his district’s roads, Foster said.

“This is not equity, and District Four deserves better,” he said.

Officials have long blamed a lack of funding for the city’s growing backlog of street repairs. An estimated $188 million a year is needed over the next decade to achieve and maintain a street network that’s in satisfactory condition or better.

Right now, more than one-third of the city’s streets are in poor condition or worse. The 17 miles of unpaved roads are a subset of what the city estimates to be 62 miles of unimproved roads that don’t meet infrastructure standards.

inewsource found many of the below-standard roads are concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods with more residents of color.

For example, District 4 — which has the highest share of below-standard roads — includes the Encanto area. More than half of the neighborhoods’ residents are Hispanic or Latino, and 16% are Black. Its median household income is $69,000 a year, compared to nearly $99,000 countywide.

Often, officials prioritize repairs on roads in better condition. That’s because maintaining a good road will extend the life of the pavement and cost the city less money later down the line.

Here’s the city’s explanation: Fixing a below-standard road costs 12 times more money per mile than fixing a regular one because improving these below-standard roads goes beyond laying pavement. In addition to the paving, projects could include upgrades to surrounding infrastructure such as stormwater drains, sidewalks and utility boxes, for example.

The city previously excluded some of its worst streets and alleys from funding because these roads were so bad that they didn’t meet a quality threshold to be considered within the city’s paving plans. Only once a road met the standard could it be considered for paving.

But that changed in 2021 when the City Council, acknowledging the inequities, updated its policy to allow these roads to qualify for funding.

Mayor Todd Gloria has pushed for road repairs in underserved neighborhoods, including his $40 million program known as Sexy Streets, which aimed to prioritize projects in areas that he said “haven’t traditionally received their fair share.”

But Gloria’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the plan to fix the city’s dirt roads. Instead, a spokesperson for the transportation department contacted inewsource, saying despite the lengthy timeline, fixing unimproved roads has become a “higher priority.”

Spokesperson Anthony Santacroce said the city developed a new prioritization process to include below-standard streets for funding and would “focus first on unpaved segments.”

This prioritization process takes into account the number of people impacted by the poor roads, safety, how services like street sweeping and trash collection are impacted, and proximity to neighborhoods with low employment, poorer air quality or other lack of resources.

“The Transportation Department has and will continue to provide as needed grading and patchwork on paved and unpaved unimproved roads to ensure they are passable and accessible,” Santacroce said.

The department plans to request funding to design two unimproved road segments per year and then request more funding later on for construction once those segments are completely designed.

Improving two roads per year would cost about $4.3 million annually, according to the city.

Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who represents communities such as Barrio Logan, San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, said the city’s timeline to fix the unpaved streets is “not satisfactory.” Her district has the second-highest number of unpaved miles in the city.

Moreno said fixing these roads is “urgent” as neighborhoods in her district also lack sidewalks, wheelchair-accessible ramps and storm drains. The dirt roads are at a high risk of flooding, she said, and are “not safe to drive, bike or walk on.”

“From a pure fairness standpoint, the continued existence of these streets is unjust,” Moreno said in a statement. “The residents who live on and use the unimproved roads pay taxes just like everyone else.”

For 45 years, Jose Angel Guadalupe has lived in the Tijuana River Valley, an area prone to floods. He and his two horses have only known his street, Sunset Avenue, as an uneven dirt road. When it rains, he said, vehicles can’t pass and he can’t get to his horses to feed them.

On drier days, Guadalupe rides a lawnmower collecting litter in his neighborhood. A thin cloud of dirt kicks up and follows him as he drives.

“I don’t feel too good (about it),” he said about the dirt road. “But hey, it is what it is. You know, we just gotta live with it. There’s nothing else we could do.”

inewsource intern Muhammad Shumail contributed to this report.