A safety makeover is coming to a well-worn historic San Diego pathway

A popular alley in a historic San Ysidro neighborhood is one step closer to a makeover that will transform the area into an official “cultural corridor.”

The city of San Diego and local nonprofit Casa Familiar have partnered on a $4.3 million project to upgrade a quarter-mile stretch of Cypress Drive, a bustling alley near homes, businesses, public transit and more.

The alley resides in the San Ysidro Historic Village — the “heart” of the community, as officials call it. Residents frequently use the alley for work commutes, with foot and vehicle traffic peaking during mornings and afternoons. But locals say Cypress Drive in its current state is too risky for pedestrians and motorists to share the road.

Now, $1.5 million from the state has narrowed the project’s funding gap. The city’s Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee formally approved the grant at a meeting last month. 

Crews will convert Cypress Drive from a two-way street into a northbound, one-way alley to make space for a pedestrian path. They will also install more streetlights and underground power lines.

Casa Familiar President and CEO Lisa Cuestas said the project is one of a few “creative interventions” pitched to the city. Beyond addressing safety concerns, she said the project will improve the connection between the area’s homes, public transit, an art gallery, businesses and other community resources, such as a teen center, a nearby playground and Casa Familiar’s headquarters. 

“It’s really core to being able to enhance the quality of life in many different ways,” Cuestas said.

The city has labeled San Ysidro as one of its “communities of concern” — a historically underserved area that has more polluted air, higher poverty and worse conditions for pedestrians, including people with disabilities, than other parts of San Diego.

San Ysidro also grapples with poor road conditions. While failing roads can be found across the city, the council district that includes San Ysidro holds more than one-fifth of San Diego’s “unimproved roads” — streets or alleys that don’t meet infrastructure standards. 

That’s the second-highest among San Diego’s nine districts.

Cypress Drive is among the many networks of alleys in San Ysidro that residents use to reach existing amenities. At least a dozen artists have already adorned Cypress with murals on fences and walls between San Ysidro Boulevard and Sellsway Street, the project’s boundaries.

Cuestas said she had been informally calling the alley a cultural corridor for the past several years. 

Resident Blanca Valdez said people park their cars in the alley, further narrowing the two-way road. A new apartment complex nearby has also exacerbated the parking challenges, she said. 

But Valdez said there are also safety concerns, including poor lighting, speeding cars and motorists who don’t halt at the stop signs.

“In reality, people stop when they’re already in the middle of the street or see that the car is approaching, because I don't know if they’re checking (for traffic),” Valdez said in Spanish. 

Just last week, Valdez said she heard a motorist collide with a boy riding an electric scooter right outside her home. When Valdez stepped outside, the boy appeared to have been thrown across the street from the crash. Valdez heard him say the driver didn't stop. 

The recent collision was not reported, according to San Diego police calls for service. However, since 2022, people have called police to report incidents ranging from illegal parking, violent disturbances of peace, graffiti tagging and one hit-and-run.

Improvements to Cypress Drive fall under the San Ysidro Historic Village plan drafted in 2016, which aims to “create an attractive, intensified urban environment with a mix of land uses” while preserving “the low-scale single- and multi-family character of the residential areas.”

The plan also aims to maintain the area’s “village” character with uses, amenities, and design elements that reflect residents’ needs and its Latino influence — a concept known as “Latino urbanism.” This could include private gardens with intricate landscaping that uses materials reflecting the history and culture of Mexican American textiles, or murals inspired by Indigenous heritage.

What is Latino urbanism?

According to renowned urban planner James Rojas, Latino Urbanism encompasses adaptive strategies, behavioral idiosyncrasies, and informal design elements that are based on how Latinos utilize space. It inspires an “enacted environment” that provides a more intense use of public space, the creation of new spaces by families spending more time outdoors in their yards, parks, and neighborhoods. Private garden spaces are more adorned and have more landscaping. Housing among Latinos is also more diverse with multi-generational housing or multifamily units.”

Work on Cypress Drive is slated to begin later this year.