San Diego – The term grid, as used in this article, doesn’t refer to the electricity grid, as does the common use of the term these days. Rather it refers to the street grid. In particular, it refers to the uniform 200′ x 300′ alley-less blocks that make up downtown San Diego. In as much as this article is an exploration of pedestrian oriented deviations from the street grid, I considered entitling it “off the grid” but concluded the term was overused and had too strong a connection to the electricity grid, and thus would simply annoy those looking for articles on that topic.
Alonzo Horton, the founder of downtown San Diego in the 1870s, associated alleys with filth, crime, and debauchery, as was the case in many cities at the time. Additionally, as a developer, Horton knew that corner lots sold at a premium and by cutting down blocks to half the normal size, he had twice as many corner lots to sell. Wider streets were also in vogue, as they would be for the next 100 years. What resulted and remains today are short 200 x 300 foot alley-less blocks surrounded by wide streets on all sides. While this has preserved some views and light access, it makes for a somewhat monotonous pedestrian experience with walks too frequently interrupted by intersections, lack of variety, or lack of quiet pedestrian scale paths of travel.
This first installment of a series identifies a few pathways dedicated solely to pedestrians. The pathways selected for this first installment are those which were at-grade, i.e., neither elevated nor subterranean. Other criteria were that they had to have a Point A and Point B (not dead end or loop) and not run alongside a road open to auto traffic. If I have missed any, please feel free to bring it to my attention and I will add it to those below. However, it may be that I saved it for a future installment in this series: parks, elevated pedestrian paths, and pedestrian friendly streets.
| A very narrow alley on the North side of Market St., between 4th and 5th Avenues. This one must have gotten away from Horton. However, its now blocked off from public access. In any case, it never went all the way through. Its included here more for novelty than than anything else. | |
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Located just South of I-5, this path is an extension of the Tweet Street Park but offers a short cut between Sixth and 7th Avenues in the Cortez neighborhood |
| What used to be K Street from 7th Avenue to Park Blvd. (which used to be 12th Ave.), is now primarily a pedestrian walkway with baseball stadium on the South side and the “Park in the Park” on the North side. There are also access paths from J Street to the North. Its not open during events at the stadium or late at night |  |
| Below are photos of the Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade looking West and East. It provides an attractive (spectacular at the reflecting pools) and pleasant walk, but isn’t of much transit use for pedestrians due to its peripheral location. Its no surprise that most of the pedestrian paths, and the longest paths, are at the edge of downtown near the waterfront. This is where the grid pattern breaks down. Most of it was water or tideland at the time Horton’s grid was laid out, and later built up to make permanent dry land. | |
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| Below: Perhaps, the most unusual pedestrian path is located in a narrow seam between the Convention Center and the Marriott Harborside Hotel. It provides the only at grade public access path in the long wall created by those structures to Seaport Village, yet it is so hidden that even someone who has prior knowledge of it would have difficulty finding it. When you get close, look for metal sculptures, e.g. man with binoculars on the wall at North entrance, indicating its location. |  |
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| Below, are photos of the path along harbor water front, near the Convention Center – Marriott path. Downtown’s longest pedestrian and bike path, it extends all the way from the Pedestrian Bridge at the Park Blvd. terminus near Petco Park to the Airport area. For lack of finding an official name for it, here I have facetiously named it El Malecon, as the term is used for waterfront promenades in places like Puerto Vallarta and Havana. | |
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| Below: Providing pedestrian-only access between West Broadway and the Marina district, is a path at the back end of Pantoya Park. It is a remnant of Columbia Street, which at some point was cut off as a street. | |
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Left: State Street access to Pantoya Park path |
| To the right, is a short mid-block arcade through the Westgate Hotel connecting 2nd & 3rd Avenues between Broadway & C St. |  |
| Below, are photos of Civic Center Plaza. More a plaza than a path, it nevertheless includes an access path from ‘A’ Street and narrow entrances from 3rd Avenue and ‘C’ Street, the latter one through City Hall. Centrally located in the business core, it is heavily used by business pedestrians to get to the courts, municipal agencies, and nearby office buildings. | |
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All photos by Bill Adams
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