Park Users Ponder Road’s Toll

Still dripping from the waves off San Onofre State Beach, surfer Luke Mannix shook his head when asked about transit officials’ plans to build a six-lane toll road through the park.

“They’re going to wreck something they can’t get back,” the 29-year-old San Clemente resident said. “Nobody would build a freeway through Yosemite. If they really wanted to, they could figure out another way.”

Not everyone visiting the coastal park Sunday agreed with Mannix. A random sampling of campers, bicyclists, divers and strollers drew a mix of humor, anger, resignation and support for the 16-mile Foothill South tollway extension, which won approval Thursday from O.C. officials looking to ease future congestion on Interstate 5.

The 241 extension would begin at Oso Parkway in Rancho Santa Margarita and slice through San Onofre park before swooping over a marine estuary to connect with Interstate 5 at Basilone Road.

“You can’t stop progress,” said a sun-drenched 47-year-old who identified himself only as Bob-O of San Clemente. “It ain’t gonna stop until Orange County looks like Manhattan Island in New York.... The toll road will get built, and everybody will get used to it, and nobody will think about it after a while.”

Bob-O’s friend Swoop, 57, agreed: “It doesn’t matter how many petitions get signed. Money talks.”

Several San Onofre visitors speculated that the presence of the tollway would spur more development along its route. “This isn’t about reducing traffic on the 5. It’s about being able to develop surrounding hillsides,” said Wayne Caley, 57, standing outside a trailer in the park’s San Mateo campground.

Caley, a Lakewood resident who uses San Onofre as a getaway from his job as a tugboat salesman, said he was depressed and angry that county officials would “forsake this beautiful spot.”

Surfer Christina Moore, 26, peeling off her wetsuit on the shore, predicted the toll road would bring crowds to San Onofre, already California’s fifth most popular state park. “It’s going to give people in the 909 area code direct access to this beach,” she fretted.

Other visitors branded the tollway a noisy eyesore that would damage marine life and surfing with storm runoff.

Pointing to a freshly caught halibut, diver Mark Mestaz of San Clemente said: “That won’t be around anymore. This will be like Laguna Beach after it got built up.... No more eelgrass, and the sea urchins are buried and dead.”

Tollway officials said the route they chose was the least harmful to the environment and avoided the need to bulldoze hundreds of homes and businesses in San Clemente. The plan still needs approval from federal agencies, the state Coastal Commission and the U.S. Navy, which owns the park and leases the land to the state. It also could face lawsuits from environmentalists and the state attorney general’s office.

When park visitors who oppose the toll road were asked how they would ease future traffic without it, most suggested widening Interstate 5. One surfer wasn’t sure even that step was necessary. “I think there will be less cars,” said Ron Plomell, 63, of Trabuco Canyon. “We won’t have the petroleum. It’ll be too expensive for most people.”

Some visitors disagreed with all the doomsaying. “I don’t foresee the road harming this park at all,” said Don Stenersen, 50, a longtime San Clemente resident who was camping in the park. “The way the economy is going, we have to expand.”

Stenersen described the park as a quick, peaceful getaway for locals but said the encroachment of suburbia was inevitable: “Nothing lasts forever. All good things must come to an end.”