Need for East-West Artery Mounts : Encinitas Faces Difficult Crossroad

It is a motorist’s nightmare. Most waking hours, the cars queue up like an angry horde at the intersection of Encinitas Boulevard and El Camino Real in the seaside community of Encinitas.

The reason is really quite simple. Between Encinitas Boulevard and La Costa Avenue to the north, there is not a single east-west road to handle the traffic generated by the sprawling housing tracts that have sprouted up in recent years in the interior of Encinitas.

With no other options available, most everyone trying to get home or to the shopping center ends up on Encinitas Boulevard and, inevitably, at its intersection with El Camino Real.

Solutions Elusive

That troubled meeting of roads has become a major issue for the City Council. But every direction city officials turn for solutions these days, they seem to run into a buzz saw of opposition. Even, they say, on the most minute detail.

Take, for example, the events of Tuesday.

About 30 residents from the Summerfield neighborhood just south of Encinitas Boulevard picketed City Hall for about an hour, protesting a series of traffic changes that could impact their area.

Perhaps the most notable suggestion called for the elimination of a turn pocket on Encinitas Boulevard, a change that would send traffic streaming onto the neighborhood’s residential streets.

The turn lane in question allows cars heading west on Encinitas Boulevard to turn left onto Balour Drive and speed south. If the turn lane was closed, many motorists would likely divert down Beechtree Drive or Witham Road in the Summerfield neighborhood.

To the homeowners, this was serious stuff. If the street changes were made, traffic could increase from the current 2,000 trips per day to more than 6,000 or so, according to the city’s projections.

“This is a quiet, residential neighborhood, and we intend to keep it that way,” said Alan Hersh, an attorney who lives in the Summerfield area.

‘Tempest in a Thimble’

But city officials say the idea, which was tossed around at a meeting of a special subcommittee that is searching for solutions to the Encinitas/El Camino Real mess, is far from becoming a reality.

“This is a tempest in a thimble,” Councilwoman Marjorie Gaines said of the homeowners picketing City Hall. “A neighborhood alarmist group swung into action and decided we had decided to do something, which we hadn’t.”

Gaines said the chances of the turn lane being shut down any time soon are slim, and argued that the idea would get a full airing before both the Summerfield neighborhood and the community at large before any decision is made.

Encinitas officials say the issue is a mere sidelight to the larger question of where to route a major new east-west road that would ease congestion at El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard.

Over the past months, numerous possible routes for such an artery have been discussed, but most have been received with disdain by homeowners who would feel the impact of increased traffic on their streets.

For example, when city officials proposed punching Leucadia Boulevard through undeveloped territory to connect Interstate 5 with El Camino Real, homeowners along the street protested loud and hard.

Special Subcommittee

With those gripes ringing in their ears, the council decided in July to appoint a special subcommittee to study the alternatives. So far, the group has met three times in private, looking at half-a-dozen routes. So far, no universally palatable proposal has emerged.

Aside from the complaints of neighbors, city officials must deal with the wishes of the Ecke family, the renowned poinsettia growers who own most of the property that is being considered for a new east-west road.