Parents around Lake Murray say a quiet-looking corner by the park feels anything but safe, and they are fed up waiting for City Hall to notice.
The intersection at Murray Park Drive and Belle Glade Avenue, right by the Little League fields and playground, is a daily worry for families who use the park. Led by neighborhood organizer Rose Woods, residents began filing requests in spring 2025, urging the city to install a stop sign at the park entrance. Their efforts ramped up after a deadly crash in nearby San Carlos last fall, which parents see as a warning shot they do not want repeated here.
The problem, neighbors say, is that the city’s traffic rules are treating their lived experience like it is extra credit instead of part of the main test.
San Diego uses a technical scoring system to decide where stop signs and crosswalks go, and this corner keeps falling short. A 2020 stop-sign request for the site scored 10 of the 15 points the city requires, and a 2025 crosswalk review scored 10 of the 16 points needed, according to Axios. The tallies are based on factors like how close the intersection is to schools and playgrounds, how many cars and pedestrians use it, and past crash history.
Neighbors say the rules do not match what they see on the ground
People who rely on the park say the point system may work in a spreadsheet, but it completely misses the daily near-misses: drivers rolling through at speed, families pushing strollers, and kids darting between ballfields.
“We want our kids outside, riding their bikes and playing together in the neighborhood,” Woods told Axios, adding that the intersection “makes it difficult to fully relax.” Parents say that for a place meant to be a neighborhood gathering spot, there is an awful lot of looking over their shoulders.
A fatal warning from San Carlos
Just a few miles away, an October 2025 collision in San Carlos is never far from anyone’s mind. Local reporting shows a child was struck and killed while crossing Jackson Drive at Lake Badin Avenue, after residents there had already been asking the city for crosswalks and stop signs. East County Magazine detailed the incident and the community’s outcry in its aftermath.
NBC 7 San Diego also covered the crash and the mounting pressure from San Carlos neighbors for basic safety fixes.
What officials changed and what neighbors want next
In San Carlos, that fatal collision finally prompted City Hall to act. Officials moved to add stop signs and stepped up enforcement near the school, a response that left Lake Murray families wondering why similar preventive steps are still missing in their own backyard.
City staff told reporters that the Murray Park Drive location did not meet the department’s thresholds for a stop sign or marked crosswalk. That language, echoed in local coverage, stated that the request was closed as “no action is warranted” before the fatal crash occurred. NBC 7 San Diego reported on the city’s response and the renewed neighborhood pressure that followed.
Advocates press for a policy fix
Safe-streets advocates say that kind of point-based system often shuts the door on simple, low-cost fixes that can make a big difference. They argue that getting a crosswalk or a stop sign near a park or school should not require running a bureaucratic obstacle course.
Local group Circulate San Diego has amplified calls for change and pushed for updates after the October deaths, arguing the city should “encourage, not discourage, crosswalks and safe streets.” Circulate San Diego has been organizing outreach and policy advocacy to overhaul how these decisions are made.
For now, Lake Murray neighbors say they are not backing down. They plan to keep filing Get It Done reports, collecting signatures, and pressing council offices to rewrite the criteria that control where stop signs and crosswalks go. A growing petition led by Woods and broader community outreach make one thing clear: residents intend to keep the pressure on the city until a permanent safety fix lands at Murray Park Drive and Belle Glade Avenue.
