S.D. Council Delays Decision on Link Between I-5 and I-15

The long-awaited construction of Route 56, which would provide an east-west link between inland Interstate 15 and coastal Interstate 5, will have to wait a bit longer.

The San Diego City Council voted 6 to 1 Tuesday to continue for two weeks a decision on the location of the west end of the freeway, saying it wants to investigate other sites for the I-5 junction.

A divided crowd filled the council chambers, with inland residents urging immediate action to join the two freeways at Carmel Valley Road in the North City West area. The coastal residents, who outnumbered their inland opponents, damned the connection as destroying sensitive coastal wetlands and intruding into residential areas.

Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, whose district includes the North City area where both opponents and proponents of the plan reside, proposed the delay to study a new proposal that would route the west end of Route 56 to the south, joining with I-5 about a quarter of a mile north of the I-5 and I-805 split.

However, state Department of Transportation engineers testified that such routing is not possible because of the proximity to that split, and saying it would cost about four times as much as the Carmel Valley route, which was adopted by the state 19 years ago.

Jack Grasberger, deputy district director of Caltrans, said three Route 56 connections in the I-5 and I-805 area have been studied by the department and rejected as unsafe because they would not allow enough distance for drivers to merge or change lanes to connect with one of the three major freeways. A distance of two miles from the split is needed, he said, which puts the connection at the Carmel Valley location.

Wolfsheimer, who said she still believes a new route can be found without delaying the construction of the much-needed highway, said the Carmel Valley routing is “pitting the freedom from gridlock and air pollution” for inland residents against “intrusion into very sensitive biological habitat” in the coastal sections of the valley and Penasquitos Lagoon.

“I’ve always said I wanted to see Route 56 by ‘96,” Wolfsheimer said. “I still would like to see the route completed by ‘96, but I don’t want to see a halfway job of it. And I hate to see a district divided.”

Although no one at the four-hour hearing denied that the freeway is needed, coastal opponents argued that there is no need to put a busy freeway through the center of a community when it can be routed through vacant land to the south.

Inland Rancho Penasquitos residents argued that much of their community has been built on the promise that the major highway would be built to relieve congestion within the community and on I-15.

Councilwoman Judy McCarty, the lone vote against the two-week continuance, urged immediate action, saying that “no matter what we decide, we will be sued by one side or the other.”