With cars blocking driveways daily, one resident asks for L-shaped markings to indicate parking spaces.

Frustrated by repeated blocking of residents’ driveways on Park Row, homeowner Ray Weiss has asked the La Jolla Traffic & Transportation Board to consider approving the addition of L-shaped markings painted on the road to indicate the end of existing red curbs.

The discussion-only item, heard Dec 17, led T&T to agree to place the item for an actionable vote at a future meeting.

Weiss, also a trustee of the La Jolla Community Planning Association, has lived on Park Row since the 1970s and said there’s a “continual problem of demand for parking and people blocking driveways.”

Currently, curbs adjacent to each driveway apron are painted red to discourage drivers from blocking driveways but those “red zones don’t do their job,” Weiss said, “partly because they’re faded and partly f[because] they’re on the passenger side of cars … driven by single drivers trying to park and go to work, whether it’s daytime in The Village or at night at the restaurants.”

Park Row “is full of parked cars all the time,” he said. And with a narrow, single-car driveway, “I’ve had cases where I could barely [get out],” he said. 

Parking patrols also miss ticketing red curb infringements when they’re blocked, Weiss said.

“The city could make people behave better” if it painted Ls on the street to indicate to drivers where the red zone ends, he said.

The red zones also need repainting, he said, though the Ls would be preferred. 

Weiss would privately fund painting red curbs and the Ls t if needed, as the city is facing a budget shortfall, he said.

A process to privately fund such projects does exist, according to Emily Lynch, representing San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla.

The method includes obtaining a right-of-entry permit from the Development Services Department, she said, which “can be tough.”

LaCava is “trying to change that process so that it’s easier,” Lynch said.

Calling the entire idea “worthwhile,” T&T Chair Erik Gantzel will place the item for a vote at the next meeting.

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