Population Growth Will Outstrip Highway Construction in County

It used to be, if freeways got crowded, you’d go out and build another freeway. Well, we can’t do that anymore. So we have to make do with the existing facilities and look at how we can better manage our traffic. And that means more people per vehicle.

--Ray Granstedt, Caltrans traffic systems engineer

Question: How do you cram more apples in a bushel basket?

Answer: By making applesauce.

That’s sort of the challenge facing San Diego County’s road scholars as they look for ways to deal with inevitable traffic congestion at the turn of the century: how do you squeeze more rush-hour commuters onto freeways than the freeways were designed to handle?

The answer isn’t as easy as apples and applesauce but the same premise exists, traffic planners say: The commute traffic has to be rejiggered somehow to make room for still more.

Even if the best-case scenario is enacted and the money is found to construct the 84 miles of new freeways, expressways, highways and trolley extensions that local planners say are needed, freeway congestion in the year 2005 will still be nearly four times worse than it is now because the region’s population is growing at a faster rate than the freeway and highway system.

Consider the projections:

At best, the amount of freeways will increase by 14% over the next 20 years.

But the population will increase by 34% over that same period.

The actual number of car trips will increase by 52%, not only because a growing percentage of the population will be of driving age but also because, with a projected growth in real income, people will be making more adiscretionary trips to spend their money.

The number of miles driven daily by those motorists will increase 64% over today’s figures, partly because, with the region’s growth into outlying areas, there will be greater separation between home and destination.

It doesn’t take a math whiz to see that traffic congestion will be getting worse. The question, then, is: What are we going to do about it?

That’s being addressed by engineers, researchers and scholars at the state Department of Transportation, the San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag), the Automobile Club of Southern California, private consulting firms and universities who are confronting the prediction that San Diego is headed toward Los Angeles-type traffic congestion.

Even with an anticipated threefold increase in mass transit ridership, resulting in part from trolley system expansion to 106 miles of routes and an improved bus system, 84% of all trips will still be on the freeway, said Mike Zdon, a senior transportation planner for Sandag.

New freeway construction depends on the availability of federal and state funding and the approval of a half-cent sales tax measure next year. San Diego County government is hard pressed just maintaining its roads and highways, and has no plans to build any new highways, even though several proposed routes--including the controversial County Routes 680 and 728 in North County--are nonetheless included on long-range maps. Most cities now extract “impact” fees from developers to soften the blow their developments will have on traffic systems, but that money generally is not used for regional transportation projects such as freeway construction.

Local Caltrans officials have asked the California Transportation Commission for $188 million to improve area freeways and highways over the next five years. But highway planners look down the road 20 years, and local Caltrans engineers have mapped out a wish list to the year 2005.

From north to south, those projects include:

- The construction of California 76 as a four-lane expressway from Interstate 5 at Harbor Drive in Oceanside to a point about three miles east--detouring congested Mission Avenue in Oceanside, which currently carries the California 76 traffic--and the widening of 76 farther east to four lanes, all the way to Interstate 15. Planners say the improvements are sorely needed to relieve congestion on Mission Avenue and to better handle traffic to and from Camp Pendleton’s back gate.

- The widening of four-lane California 78 between Oceanside and Escondido to six lanes. Currently, California 78 handles the brunt of North County’s east-west traffic and stretches of it are expected to be among the most congested in the county’s freeway system by the year 2005.

- The construction of California 56, ultimately linking North City West to Ramona via Rancho Penasquitos. The highway would connect Interstate 5 at Carmel Valley Road to Interstate 15 at a point between Poway Road and Carmel Mountain Road at Rancho Penasquitos. It would then continue east, intersecting Camino del Norte and running along the north side of Poway to the proposed north-south California 125 (the so-called Inland Freeway) before ultimately connecting with California 67 south of Ramona.

Once constructed, California 56 through North City will become the major east-west highway for the 22-mile gap between Californias 78 and 52. But, except for an interchange at Interstate 15 which will double as the interchange for Interstate 15’s car-pool lanes, no work has begun on the route because no money has been set aside for the project.

- The extension of California 52, which already links Interstates 5 and 805 through University City, all the way to Santee, via Tierrasanta.

Construction is under way, extending California 52 to Convoy Street, and work is expected to begin within weeks on the link between Convoy and Santo Road in Tierrasanta, east of Interstate 15. A public hearing will be held later this year on the proposed route between Tierrasanta and Santee, where it would connect with California 67. No money has been set aside yet for the final leg.

The completion of east-west California 52 will lessen the burden on Interstate 8, giving motorists an alternative route between East County and Kearny Mesa, planners say.

- The construction, currently under way, of California 54 between Interstates 5 and 805 along the Sweetwater River in the South Bay. The stretch is expected to be completed in three years. Eventually, planners want the freeway to continue easterly toward Sweetwater Reservoir, to connect with the proposed north-south California 125, and continuing northeasterly, with an interchange at California 94 in Spring Valley and connecting with Interstate 8 near Jamacha Road in El Cajon.

- The construction of California 125 as an eight-lane freeway from the Otay Mesa border crossing north to Spring Valley, where it will connect with California 94. The California 125 link already exists between California 94 and Fletcher Parkway, with an interchange nearing completion at Interstate 8, but will be widened to eight lanes. Planners want California 125 to link Fletcher Parkway and California 52 west of Santee and, eventually, to intersect with California 56 near Poway.

Combined, the 56/125 loop will give motorists from North County an alternative to Interstates 15 and 8 in getting to El Cajon, East County and the South Bay.

- Completion of nearly two miles of California 15--the so-called 40th Street gap--between Interstates 8 and 805. Caltrans is waiting for final federal approval on the environmental impact report before it can begin purchasing property along the right-of-way. That process alone is expected to take three years. When completed, all of route 15 in San Diego County will finally meet interstate standards.

Already under construction along Interstate 15 in North County are median-strip car-pool and bus lanes, known as high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.

When completed in 1988, the HOV lanes will give car poolers, bus passengers and motorcyclists the exclusive use of two lanes along the median between the California 163-Interstate 15 split near Miramar Naval Air Station to a point eight miles north, between Poway Road and Carmel Mountain Road at what will also become the California 56 interchange.

The $35-million project, which began in 1984, calls for two reversible lanes of traffic--both lanes dedicated to southbound traffic for the morning commute, and northbound traffic for the evening commute. Electronically operated traffic cones will pop up at midday for the change in direction.

The bridge and ramp construction is well under way; next to be awarded are contracts for grading, road paving and construction of retaining walls.

By the year 2005, planners hope the HOV lanes will be extended northward an additional 6.7 miles to just south of Lake Hodges near Escondido, at an additional cost of about $30 million.

Traffic planners say constructing the two, reversible HOV lanes will have virtually the same value as building two car-pool lanes in each direction, at about half the cost. Traffic planners hope that free-flowing HOV lanes during peak hours will motivate motorists to switch to car pooling or mass transit.

“We need to encourage car pooling for the simple reason that getting two people in a car means half as many cars,” Granstedt said. “But what represents freedom in the United States is not the Liberty Bell, it’s the car. People don’t want to be somewhere without their car. They want to be able to stop at the 7-Eleven on their way home, or drive to lunch. Car pooling requires regimentation, and most people prefer their freedom.”

Commuters will turn to car pooling or mass transit only when they perceive that the inconvenience of traffic congestion is greater than the inconvenience of giving up their own car to get to work and back, Granstedt and other planners say.

And, Granstedt acknowledges, one of the tasks of traffic managers like himself is to actually make life for the single motorist more difficult, thereby motivating him to car pool. One way of doing that is by the use of signalized ramp meters, which have been installed by Caltrans along California 94 and Interstates 8 and 805.

The meters, long a fixture on Los Angeles-area freeways, are intended to accomplish three goals:

- Restrict the amount of traffic flowing onto the freeway so it can be absorbed more readily. Freeway motorists can more easily accept one car merging into the slow lane every 5 to 15 seconds (a rate that is determined by computer, depending on the freeway volume at that moment) than whole platoons of cars streaming onto the freeway at once, which at congested hours will cause freeway commuters to slow down, switch lanes and perhaps bring traffic to a virtual halt.

- Encourage car pooling, by giving multioccupant vehicles the privilege of using a less-congested car-pool lane to enter the freeway, thereby saving them as much as 20 minutes in waiting time over single-occupant vehicles.

- So frustrate single motorists with long waits at the metered on-ramp that they’ll choose to use a surface street instead--thereby reducing the volume of traffic on the freeway.

“People migrate to the freeway out of habit, even if it’s to go only a mile or two before getting off the freeway again,” Granstedt said. “A delay may cause them to look for alternate routes on surface streets.”

How long a delay will it take to get motorists to shun the freeway? That’s a function of how far the motorist is going and how feasible the alternate route is; most motorists won’t tolerate a wait of 20 minutes, he speculated.

In addition to expanding the number of metered on-ramps and the construction of the HOV lane on Interstate 15, planners for Sandag and the Metropolitan Transit Development Board talk of expanding the trolley system and perhaps turning to rail transit along the coast between Oceanside and San Diego and between Oceanside and Escondido along the California 78 corridor.

Sandag, which has the responsibility for long-range transportation and transit planning in the region, predicts that, over the next 20 years, 35% of all mass transit users will use “light rail”--the trolley. Today, the trolley is the choice of about 14% of all mass transit users.