The city believes that reverse diagonal parking = gentrification. Next time you spot a diagonal parking spot, imagine backing into it, with cards on either side. The goal? bicycle-ificaiton.

There have been few studies of curb vs angle parking safety, and I find no data-based study of head-in vs rear-in angle parking. One 2005 study http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/0-4703-P1.pdf shows clearly that curb parking leads to fewer crashes (see Table 4-10). The crash modification factors for various types of street settings are enough to completely rule out angle parking. San Jose has an ordinance making it illegal to back into any kind of parking space, based on safety factors.

Most supporters of angle parking, particularly reverse-angle parking, rely on anecdotal concerns, not on engineering safety studies. Most maintain that reverse-angle parking is a traffic-calming/street-narrowing tool.

Given that the stretch of 25th Street, from A to the 94 overpass, has no traffic problems at all, it certainly needs no calming. It has no parking problem. It is a convenient, uncrowded 4-lane street with curb parking that is always available, along with free parking lots owned by various businesses.

Why would anyone want to create potential traffic jams (considering that metro buses use 25th) by reducing the lanes? Why narrow the street? Maybe some local business-property owners who have pushed this plan for decades would like to see space available in the wider sidewalk PROW for beer and food tables? And then free parking would become a problem, and paid parking could be imposed.

Whatever. But bicyclists beware: normally, people pull out of a parking space head-first at higher speeds, compared to backing out. And there's no guarantee that any driver will always check for bikers, head-first or rear-first.

Angle vs Curb parking Crash Rates

If the sidewalks are widened and parking stalls added, does that mean the lanes will be narrower?

Ian, The (misguided) goal is to take the current four driving lanes (2 lane, 2-way, betw B and 94, with parallel curb parking on both sides) and reduce them to two driving lanes and a ctr turn lane, with angle parking and bike lane on each side. For the 30-year history of this, see http://www.sandiego.gov/planning/community/profiles/greatergoldenhill/ (bottom of the page: the link to the capital project page no longer works, but the pdfs show you the history of consultants being paid for decades).

The 2015 budget now posted on the main SD gov page shows $895K already spent on this project. Another $1.9 mill is supposed to be spent by 2015 on removing lanes, restriping parking, and widening sidewalks. The replacement water pipe project for Golden Hill is another project you can find in the 2015 budget, but it does not seem like it will happen at the same time as the lane-removal/restriping project.

Meanwhile, the real goal for 25th Street becomes apparent in the Feb 2014 request to the GH Planning Committee, by the Golden Hill City Planning rep, Bernard Turgeon, to include in the updated GH plan "upgraded [density] areas [to] include 25th St., which includes a mixed-use option to a maximum of 44 dwelling units per acre (du/ac), including a density bonus ..."

Infill, infill, development to the max...

The owner of the GH pawn shop is a nice person. There's a reason for the very long-term success of the shop: people go there and use the service. I would suggest that it could appear more tasteful in it's color and design, but there's no dishonor in selling on a temporary basis or in buying items from people who hope very much to redeem the items. I think pawn shops are more tasteful than tattoo shops, which were once considered the lowest of the low-life in downtown but now abound in the hipster-oriented realms! It's a matter of how trends shape perception, not absolute values.