A popular program that closed seven blocks of Fifth Avenue to car traffic, using removable metal bollards, was recently cancelled – and now the city of San Diego and the Gaslamp Quarter Association are telling different versions of why funding was cut off.
In a San Diego Sun story that ran two days ago, Gaslamp Quarter Association Executive Director Michael Trimble said the city wasn’t funding the “Slow Street” program due to cost-cutting efforts by the city, which is facing a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar budget deficit.
The city did not respond in time for the initial story but subsequently reached out with a joint statement from San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn.
“The Fifth Avenue bollard contract, which was managed by the Gaslamp Quarter Association, exceeded the amount the City told GQA at the outset would be allocated for program operations, which primarily entailed daily removal and replacement of the bollards,” Mayoral Spokesperson Rachel Laing wrote in a text.
“The City Council authorized $100,000 from Community Parking District funds for the program for Fiscal Year 2025,” Laing wrote. “GQA declined to continue the program in light of its costs being higher than the authorized amount.”
The GQA’s Trimble maintained the cost of the bollard program is and has always been the responsibility of the city.
“The cost in Fiscal Year 2024, including daily installation and removal of the bollards, maintenance, cleaning, and management, was $437,351.01,” Trimble said. “That amount was paid entirely by the City. The cost for Fiscal Year 2025 was approximately the same. The city has always known the amount of this cost.”
Trimble said the GQA and the city had a written contract for a five-year term (through Fiscal Year 2028).
GQA Vice Chair Aron Langellier said the city already owes the GQA more than $200,000 for prepayment made to the vendor that managed the bollards.
“We already paid for a few months in advance and we’re talking to lawyers about it,” said Langellier, who co-owns Barleymash and Hasta Manana Cantina on Fifth Avenue and Smoking Gun and Spill The Beans on Market Street.
City spokesperson Laing disputes the reimbursement.
“We did not authorize that amount to be spent and in fact let GQA know in early 2024 that we would be proposing to allocate $100,000 from parking district funds for the bollards, which gave them ample time to renegotiate a less costly contract,” Laing wrote.
“This proposal went through the entire three-month budget process prior to being the amount authorized in the adopted budget,” she continued. “No agreement was made to reimburse costs over that amount.”
The bollards had been in use to block traffic to allow pedestrians to walk on Fifth Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter (downtown San Diego’s entertainment district) since May 2023.
The bollards stopped traffic for seven blocks, from Broadway to K Street. Initial plans had called for just five blocks to be part of the Slow Street program.
From the beginning, the bollards were put in place from noon to 2 a.m. In late 2024, concerns arose that people were congregating, drinking and fighting in the blocked streets, and some were not patronizing bars and restaurants.
Due to this issue, the streets were reopened to traffic earlier, at midnight instead of 2 a.m.
Langellier said that after the recent Bourbon Street incident – where a man drove a pickup truck onto the crowded New Orleans street and killed 14 people celebrating the New Year – the Gaslamp bollards were again left in place until 2 a.m.
Perhaps coincidentally, a few weeks after that the bollard program ended.
“I do think the Bourbon Street incident is a real concern in any entertainment district,” Langellier said. “No doubt we could be a target for something like that.”
Langellier said he’s a big fan of the Gaslamp Promenade plan, which initially called for blocking the street from traffic and then including areas for trees, seating and semi-permanent activation spots for outdoor street performances.
Definitely no room in the city’s budget for that.
“The Promenade was a great idea – I wish we could have done the whole thing and not just a closed street,” he said. “I think [closed streets] would still be nice for special events, holidays, Padres games and stuff like that.”
Is the grand Gaslamp Promenade idea dead? One merchant unofficially wondered if private funding could be obtained to manage at least the bollards.
The GQA’s Trimble said he could not comment at this point as to whether the program could be privately funded.
“We have not received a proposal for private funding of the program, nor am I aware of one,” he said. SDSun
