"I support street closure anywhere we can get it," Henish Pulickal, a past chair of the Pacific Beach Planning Group, told his fellow members this summer. "Our streets aren't safe. Our sidewalks are disgusting. We have too much space dedicated to driving and parking in Pacific Beach."
He was talking about one block. Not the boardwalk itself, which has been car-free for decades and stretches three and a half miles from South Mission Beach up to Law Street. He was talking about the short run of Ocean Boulevard between Grand Avenue and Thomas Avenue, the one stretch of that entire corridor that still lets cars through. If you have ever walked, biked, or tried to parallel park along that block on a July Saturday, you already know it does not behave like a normal street. Now Pacific Beach is arguing over whether to admit that officially.
A Street That Already Stopped Being A Street
Here is the part most residents have never had spelled out: the boardwalk we know today was carved out of the old Ocean Avenue decades ago, but the block between Grand and Thomas got left out of that conversion. Everywhere else, the pavement became a promenade. On this one stretch, it stayed a hybrid, half pedestrian overflow and half parking lane, because nobody finished the job.
BeautifulPB, the grassroots nonprofit behind an annual count called PB Counts, decided to find out what that block actually does with its pavement rather than what the striping says it should do. Using VivaCity traffic sensors alongside prior summer counts, the group found that pedestrians and cyclists made up about 73.7 percent of roadway use on that block, with motorized vehicles accounting for roughly 26.3 percent. Put plainly, three out of every four people moving through that space were on foot or on a bike, not in a car, even though the block is signed and striped like it belongs to cars.
The sensors also caught something harder to argue with: near misses, defined as a vehicle passing within about a meter of a pedestrian or cyclist. Those clustered on weekend afternoons and evenings, exactly when the adjacent boardwalk is jammed and people spill onto the roadway because there is nowhere else to go. The adjacent boardwalk routinely hits 11,000 to 12,000 people on a summer weekend, and July 4th weekend data showed pedestrian traffic on the roadway spiking while vehicle traffic stayed flat.
The Vote That Already Happened
This is not a hypothetical proposal sitting in someone's inbox. In June 2026, the Pacific Beach Planning Group voted 10 to 4, at a well attended meeting, to recommend closing that block to vehicle traffic during peak pedestrian and bicycle hours on weekends and holidays. The pilot on the table would run roughly 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., timed to the hours when the boardwalk actually fills up, using portable barriers and continued sensor monitoring rather than a permanent redesign.
David Cuthell, beautifulPB's co-president, made the case to planners directly. "Once upon a time, the entire boardwalk used to be car-free," he said, before laying out the count data. "This report presents quantitative evidence demonstrating that Ocean Boulevard already functions primarily as a pedestrian plaza space, and that vehicle traffic is minimal." His argument is less about redesigning a street and more about updating the paperwork to match what the street has already become.
Not everyone in the room agreed that the data settled anything.
"This is a proposal from beautifulPB, which has a reputation for being anti-car. Their proposal for closing this area has been done with no study, no justification and no baseline data. There have been no injuries reported. We need more access and more parking near the beach, not less."
That was Scott Chipman, a community activist who argued against the pilot at the same meeting. His objection is not really about the sensor numbers. It is about what disappears if the pilot goes forward: roughly 30 beach parking spaces, including three accessible stalls, in a neighborhood where finding a spot on a summer weekend is already its own competitive sport. Business owners along that stretch have raised similar concerns, and some residents worry that diverting westbound traffic into nearby alleyways could slow response times near Fire Station No. 21.
What Happens Between Now And Next Summer
The Planning Group's vote is a recommendation, not a decision. Any formal proposal now heads to city officials for review, and supporters and opponents alike have been pointed toward Council President Joe LaCava's office as the next stop in the process. LaCava represents District 1, which covers Pacific Beach, and any pilot still needs staff sign off and likely additional approvals before a single barrier gets placed on the pavement. There is also an open question about whether the California Coastal Commission would need to weigh in, since the Commission's stated mission is to maximize public access for all Californians, even though some residents have pointed to past cases where the Commission prioritized parking access as a permit condition.
City staff have flagged their own logistical concerns too. Barricades would need to go up and come down on a tight schedule every weekend, and several operational details, from signage to enforcement to alleyway traffic flow, still need to be worked out before anyone commits to a trial run.
Realistically, that means the debate cools through the fall and winter, when the boardwalk crowds thin out and the urgency drops with them, and then resurfaces as next summer's crowds return and the question of what to do with that one block gets asked again. If you want a say in how it turns out, contacting the District 1 council office or showing up to a Pacific Beach Planning Group meeting is the actual point of leverage right now, not a comment on a neighborhood Facebook group.
What This Actually Changes On A Saturday
For anyone who lives within walking distance of that stretch, here is what a weekend pilot would mean in practice, based on the plan currently on the table:
- Ocean Boulevard between Grand and Thomas would close to vehicle traffic roughly 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends and holidays, using temporary barriers rather than a permanent build.
- About 30 street parking spaces on that block, including three accessible spots, would be unavailable during those hours, pushing that demand onto nearby lots and the Crown Point area along Ingraham Street.
- The block would function like the rest of the boardwalk already does the other six days and every weekday: full pedestrian and bicycle priority, no car lane to dodge on a dog walk or a morning run.
- Nothing about this changes overnight parking rules, which remain prohibited along the boardwalk regardless of how this vote lands.
None of this is settled. What is settled is the data point that started the argument: on the one block of Pacific Beach still legally a street, three out of every four people using it are already walking or riding a bike, not driving. The question in front of the city now is whether policy catches up to that fact, or keeps pretending the block is something it already stopped being.
If you already call Pacific Beach home, this is worth tracking through the District 1 council office over the next few months, since a decision could land before next summer's crowds test the block again either way. And if you are still weighing whether PB is where you want to plant roots, knowing how a neighborhood argues over its own sidewalks tells you more about daily life there than any listing photo ever will. The team at Alanna Strei Realty Group spends as much time walking these blocks as researching them, and we are glad to talk through what a street like this means for a specific address, a specific commute, or a specific weekend routine you are picturing for yourself.
