No Valley Road, Council Panel Says : Wants East-West Highway North of San Dieguito Road

The San Dieguito River Valley should remain undeveloped and without a major east-west highway, a San Diego City Council committee voted Monday, thus putting pressure on the county to come up with a solution to ease burgeoning traffic on narrow local roads.

Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, who has led the drive to turn the 43-mile-long river valley--from Del Mar east to Ramona--into a regional open space park, won a 4-0 vote from Transportation and Land Use Committee members to remove Route 728 from the city’s projected road system. Instead, the committee voted to shift the major east-west highway north from San Dieguito Road to Via de la Valle.

By doing so, the council committee shifted the alignment of the controversial highway into county jurisdiction.

On the Books

The future Route 728--part of which exists as San Dieguito Road--has been on county road plans for 20 years as a four- and six-lane highway from Interstate 5 east to Interstate 15. But lack of funds and opposition from environmental groups and river valley residents has prevented its construction.

The council committee vote Monday reaffirmed an earlier City Council position opposing any major road through the San Dieguito River Valley.

On Wednesday, county supervisors will debate whether to downgrade Route 728 from a four-lane highway with an 18-foot-wide divider to a two-lane undivided road with right-of-way wide enough to expand it to a four-lane road eventually.

Monday’s decision won applause from representatives of Del Mar and Fairbanks Ranch, but not from property owners in the valley nor from Rancho Santa Fe planning director Gail MacLeod. Opponents of the committee vote asked city officials to delay action until a city traffic study of the entire mid-county area is completed.

Open Space Plans

Councilman Mike Gotch stressed that the City Council has long opposed development in the lower San Dieguito River Valley and a major highway in the valley’s flood plain. Plans to buy valley property as public open space have long been on the city’s wish list, and private property owners are pressing the city to proceed with acquisition or allow private development in the valley.

MacLeod joined valley property owners in urging that no action be taken by the city on Route 728 until the environmental and traffic aspects of all alternatives are considered. She said the present Route 728 connection with Interstate 5, at Del Mar Heights Road, is predicted by the county to have a future traffic count of 72,000 cars per day, unless a new interchange for 728 and I-5 is built.

Moreover, MacLeod pointed out, gridlock conditions at the Del Mar Heights interchange are predicted to occur at 53,000 cars per day--about double the present traffic--indicating the need for additional off-ramps to 728 in the San Dieguito River Valley.

Bob Mariani, general manager of Fairbanks Ranch Assn., said the association board has not taken a position on designating Via de la Valle as the future path for Route 728 and does not oppose the county’s planned downgrading of San Dieguito Road to a two-lane road through their estate community, if it remains at the width suggested by county planners.

He said that the Fairbanks homeowners have expressed no official opposition to the retention of the Route 728 designation on San Dieguito Road, as long as it also remains a two-lane collector road through their community.

Major highways should be built to the south on planned city alignments along Del Mar Heights Road and Carmel Valley Road, he said.

Rancho Santa Fe leaders have campaigned long and hard to keep through traffic off their narrow winding roads and to speed construction of Route 728, which would skirt their community to the south. They also are pushing for Route 680, a bypass to the north.