Action Put Off on Closing Road in Riverside County

County supervisors voted Tuesday to delay a decision on the future of Skyline Drive, a scenic but tortuous dirt road through the Santa Ana Mountains that county road officials want to close to public use.

The two-week delay will give supervisors a chance to deal with competing concerns and to try to find “an all-win” solution, said Supervisor Walt Abraham.

That solution may prove elusive, however, because various groups--county officials, landowners and outdoors enthusiasts among them--see the road and its proposed closure in very different terms.

Road Commissioner LeRoy D. Smoot and his staff see the closure as a means of redirecting scarce road maintenance funds to more heavily traveled thoroughfares, while eliminating the county’s liability for accidents and injuries on the narrow, curving road.

Landowners and the area’s scattered residents view the proposed closure as a solution to their law-enforcement problems: rampant vandalism and illegal shooting. But they do not want to lose the benefit of county road maintenance.

Nature enthusiasts and off-road vehicle operators view the proposal as an infringement on their right of access to public lands in Cleveland National Forest, where the rugged terrain and chaparral-covered landscape provide a rare island of isolation above Orange and Riverside counties’ suburban sprawl.

“Limiting access has the effect of limiting use (of) this regional resource,” said Ken Croker, the Sierra Club’s coordinator for Cleveland National Forest.

When landslides forced Riverside County to close the road from 1978 to 1980, vandals not only used the metal gateposts for target practice, but also stole the county’s gate, said Alan Manee, associate planner for the road commissioner.

New signs, barriers and more durable “tank gates” will cost the county about $10,000, about the same as the average annual cost of regular maintenance to the road.

But Skyline Drive’s accident rate--which stands over the last 10 years at 47.84 collisions per million miles traveled--is 22 times greater than the countywide average for two-lane roads, Manee said.

A pair of lawsuits stemming from accidents on Skyline Drive, both settled out of court, have cost Riverside County $140,540 in damages and legal costs, he said. One man was killed and another left quadriplegic in those 1982 crashes.

The county’s insurers will pay $3.5 million in the latter case.

If the county turns maintenance over to the landowners, they would face liability for accidents on Skyline Drive, said James Rose, an attorney representing landowners. “It is unreasonable to place that kind of responsibility on any private citizen.”

Several speakers at Tuesday’s public hearing suggested that county maintenance with limited public access--through an entry permit system and locked gates--could reduce both the illegal activities that disturb residents and the hazardous driving.

Forest Service officials, however, said such a system would prove cumbersome and ineffective.