Cellular Gets Job for Freeway Phones in San Diego

Ending three years of frustrating delays, stalled starts and legal threats, a San Diego County agency on Friday tentatively awarded a $5.3-million contract to an Anaheim firm to install emergency telephones on local freeways.

By a unanimous vote, the San Diego Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies (SAFE) indicated its intention to award the much-postponed contract to Cellular Communications Corp., which plans to begin installing the call boxes next month and to have the 883-phone system in place by late this year or early 1989.

Roger Walsh, SAFE’s deputy director, said that the final contract between the agency and Cellular is expected to be signed within two weeks.

“This is the final decision, it’s just that there’s some paperwork to dress up . . . to make it official,” Walsh explained.

SAFE officials hope that Friday’s action marked the end of the series of legal and procedural problems that have plagued the project since its inception in early 1985, when it arose out of controversy after one woman was killed and another raped at gunpoint after their cars broke down on freeways.

Last summer, SAFE awarded a contract to Anaheim-based Comarco Inc.--a subcontractor to Cellular--calling for the installation of call boxes along the county’s 300-mile freeway system to make it easier for motorists to telephone for help in the event of automobile problems or other emergencies.

That contract was challenged in court, however, by Cubic Corp., a San Diego-based firm that had bid about $500,000 less than Comarco.