A new shuttle that will start serving North Park and City Heights sometime next year aims to make it easier to travel within the two neighborhoods and more convenient to travel between them.
It will be the third neighborhood shuttle in the city of San Diego after the FRED downtown shuttle and the Beach Bug in Pacific Beach. But it’s the first to serve low-income areas where many residents struggle to get around.
“In my ideal world, we would have started with communities that were disconnected from transit opportunities and where there are real consequences of people not being able to travel beyond where they can walk,” said City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, whose district includes City Heights.
The shuttle will run from relatively high-income North Park through Cherokee Point, an area where property values are on the rise, and then into City Heights, a low-income neighborhood that is also the city’s most ethnically diverse.
“It’s a good mix that is representative of who lives in our city,” Elo-Rivera said.
Elo-Rivera said the shuttle, along with existing mass transit options that he said need to improve, could help some residents feel comfortable living without a car.
He said the shuttle can help people get to a bus route, do their shopping, get to a medical appointment or solve other transportation challenges.
“This can be a critical resource for seniors and for families with children,” he said. “I’m a big proponent of not just this shuttle, but shuttles in general.”
Because the shuttle will serve low-income areas, it is eligible for a state grant under a program called clean mobility options.
The North Park Main Street merchant group and the City Heights Community Development Corporation announced last month that they had been awarded a $1.5 million state grant under that program.
But they declined this week to discuss the grant or the shuttle. A spokesperson said officials don’t want to discuss the grant until it has been finalized, probably next spring.
Community officials declined to provide an estimated start date for the shuttle, say how much of North Park and City Heights it will serve, or whether passengers will have to pay to use it.
In a prepared statement, North Park Main Street executive director Mark West said the shuttle will significantly boost transportation in the area.
“Our goal is to make it easier for people to live, work and play between City Heights and North Park, and this project is a key part of that vision,” he said.
North Park Main Street’s board chair William Lopez said North Park and City Heights have faced similar challenges with neighborhood connectivity.
“We are excited to build better connectivity for our neighboring communities and address the mobility obstacles that have long persisted due to highways and car-centric urban planning,” he said.
The shuttles will be open-air electric vehicles operated by Circuit, which also operates the shuttles in downtown, Pacific Beach and several other local cities.
Those include FRANC in National City, HOOT in Oceanside, the Carlsbad Good Ride and Ride Circuit in Chula Vista.
The shuttles don’t have fixed schedules or routes. Users can request a ride on a smartphone app or hail a shuttle as it passes by.
Elo-Rivera said that funding beyond the $1.5 million grant will probably be needed. He said it would likely come from the city and the San Diego Association of Governments — the county’s regional planning agency.
He said there are no concerns about the shuttle cutting into ridership on local buses, contending the shuttle can be an important part of a wider transportation network.
