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B A L B O A PA R K
A High-Speed Drive Through Balboa Park
By Kelly Bennett | Voice of San Diego
When highway planners have a road to build, they look at where
they want it to start and where they want it to end.
Then they try to draw a line, straight as possible.
But what happens when that line goes through Balboa Park?
When the Cabrillo Freeway first came up in the 1940s, lots of
San Diegans cheered. Civic leader George Marston told the San
Diego Union newspaper in 1941 that he considered the Cabrillo
Freeway the answer to “the extreme necessity of another broad
modern thoroughfare from north to south.”
Such enthusiasm wouldn’t always endure for the highway
through the park, especially as it threatened to grow in future
decades. The city had taken its park, which began as 1,400 acres,
and sliced off dozens of acres here, dozens more there. The park
today features two freeways — the State Route 163 coursing
through it and Interstate 5 slicing off the southwestern corner.
“A freeway through the park? I mean, come on,” said Nancy
Carol Carter, a law professor at the University of San Diego who
has studied the history of Balboa Park. “There is not one place in
the park where you can’t hear traffic.”
But the idea wasn’t always controversial. We’ve been unraveling
tales from the park’s history since it was set aside in the 1860s, tracing
back controversies and big changes in the city’s crown jewel.
The current reason for debate in the park is a plan, approved in
July, to remake the park’s western entrance. The plan’s supporters
describe a romantic central plaza, free of cars, in front of many of
the park’s iconic structures. Its detractors focus more on the new
road that diverts the cars and a paid parking garage.
“Although there have been many individual uses proposed and
granted on park property, none stirs up more controversy than
roads,” wrote San Diego Union reporter Michael O’Connor in
1963. “However, in most cases the park land has been turned over
by a vote of the people.”
Over the years, city leaders wanted to add roads and private buildings,
but they needed at least two-thirds votes in a public election.
Voters overwhelmingly agreed to let the city deed about 38 acres to
the state Division of Highways for the freeway in 1941. The highway
builders broke ground in 1946, replacing lily ponds and bridle paths
under the iconic bridge leading across the Cabrillo Canyon.
Cars could pass under the arches, and landscaped hillsides bore
trees and plants, making the highway a beautiful route. Even JFK
may’ve agreed when he traveled down it in 1963. It was the first
freeway in San Diego County.
Private uses and roads had eaten up 249 of the park’s original
1,400 acres, according to a 1963 estimate in the Union.
Highway planners, however, weren’t done eyeing the park. San
Diego’s population had boomed after the World Wars, and traffic
built up on the freeway. By 1965, Caltrans revealed it planned to
double the freeway’s width, to eight lanes.
A civic group called Citizens Coordinate passionately opposed
the widening. Referred to as “politically inexperienced urban conservationists”
at the time by San Diego Magazine, the group published
a report called “Highwayman Stop! This Is City Park” and
went head-to-head with the Chamber of Commerce and a prohighway
association. Clare Crane describes their strategy in her
book, “Citizens Coordinate and The Battle for City Planning in
San Diego.”
The group organized a big “Explore Balboa Park Day” in 1967,
and while people were listening to organ concerts, going on nature
walks and watching puppet shows, Citizens Coordinate members
fanned out throughout the park to educate people and ask them to
sign a petition against the freeway.
From the petition: “Economics as well as an emotional attachment
to the Park reinforce our belief that additional highway encroachment,
by damaging one of this city’s major assets, would be a
disservice to the general well‐being of San Diego. We ask you not
to sacrifice any more of the space, the clean air, the greenery of Balboa
Park to expediency.”
With thousands of signatures on their side, the Citizens Coordinate
group caught the ear of the City Council. The state changed
its widening proposal from eight lanes to six. By the end of 1968,
the state highways chief said the department would abide by any
city decision.
The group reminded the council they didn’t want any widening
at all, not even the revised plan. And then in 1969, the federal government
gave the freeway a commemorative citation for its beauty.
The council turned down any widening and the whole event bolstered
the group’s confidence that they could have a voice in planning
issues.
Another road-related controversy that has come up in the current
debate over the new bridge and parking structure: Cars once could
travel east and west through the park. You could enter the park on
Laurel Street, drive all the way down El Prado and connect to Park
Boulevard. When the city proposed closing the eastern end of El
Prado to cars in the early 1970s, many people disagreed. The architect
for the project, John Henderson, said people got used to the change.
Kelly Bennett, Voice of San Diego, (619) 325-0531, kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org.
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