Vista council approves citywide sidewalk prioritization plan, directs staff to refine scoring

The Vista City Council voted unanimously to approve a citywide sidewalk prioritization plan that maps 121 project areas and creates a transparent, quantitative method for ranking sidewalk projects.

City traffic engineering staff presented a scoring system that uses eight criteria — including the Vista General Plan(active transportation attractor/generator models), roadway classification, land use, the Citywide Safety Action Plan (CSAP) high-injury network, collision history, equity need and overlap with Safe Routes to School projects — to assign scores up to a maximum of 28 points per project area. The plan identifies a median project length of about 0.8 miles and includes cost estimates for 10 high-priority projects to support future CIP budgeting and grant applications.

The plan also flags projects that are eligible for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding, and staff noted that consultants prepared the initial cost estimates to help with grant packaging. Sam Hassonin, the citytraffic engineering division manager, said the methodology was developed from existing city data and planning efforts so rankings would be consistent and defensible: "The goal of the plan was to have a uniform, transparent, quantitative approach to evaluating and ranking project areas."

Council discussion focused on two topics: (1) adding or increasing weighting for criteria to better capture safety and accessibility concerns, and (2) preserving flexibility to bring forward emergency or special cases outside the list. Deputy Mayor Katie Melendez, who moved the plan for adoption, emphasized the need for transparency and fairness: "We are going to have a more transparent government."

Councilmember Fox, who seconded the motion, and others requested specific scoring changes. The council instructed staff to add or adjust criteria as follows: increase the Safe Routes to School overlap score from 3 to 5 points; raise the High Injury Network weighting to 5 points; add a 3-point preference for routes that are emergency-response corridors (where traffic-calming measures are ineligible); and add a 3-point preference for project areas located on the street directly adjacent to institutions that primarily serve people with disabilities (described in the motion as "disability proximity"). Councilmembers said those adjustments should be tested before being locked in.

City staff and the consultant said changing criteria and re-running scores against all ~121 project areas would require technical work. Hassonin told the council the consultant's re-run would cost an estimated $15,000 to $25,000 to recompute rankings and produce an updated list and maps; the contract with the consultant so far is roughly $34,000. Councilmember Contreras asked staff to refine the scoring internally first and bring a proposed parameter change back to council for direction before paying the consultant to reprocess the full set.

The motion passed unanimously. The council approved the prioritization plan as the cityframework for allocating sidewalk funding and pursuing grants, and directed staff to return with a revised scoring chart (reflecting the new point allocations) and a plan for when and how often the list would be rescored. Staff said the project list will be rescored about every two years or earlier if needed, and that staff expects to manage routine updates internally over time.

Speakers during the item and public comment included senior residents and neighborhood representatives urging specific local projects. Frank Pendleton, representing Corona Del Vista Mobile Home Park, told the council his lot and nearby streets lack sidewalks and described seniors forced to walk in the street. Public commenter Sid Rothenberg urged completion of short missing sidewalk segments near the San Diego Center for the Blind and other downtown connectors.

The council and staff emphasized that the prioritization framework is a tool, not an absolute bar: individual projects can be advanced outside the list where there is an urgent safety need, but the council said it expects members to be prepared to justify such exceptions to the public.

The plan and the revised scoring chart will be returned to council for review before staff asks the consultant to reprocess all project areas under the new weights.