Carmel Valley Route Chosen for Freeway

Despite threats of legal challenges and protests by coastal residents, the San Diego City Council voted 6-to-3 Tuesday to route through Carmel Valley a freeway linking Interstates 15 and 5.

The vote on location of the western end of Route 56 Tuesday came after Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, whose district includes the east-west freeway, came out in favor of the route adopted nearly two years ago.

Wolfsheimer added several conditions to her recommendation for the Carmel Valley route over a proposed southern alignment which would avoid the planned community of North City West, from which most of the opposition to the Carmel Valley route comes. She required that additional wetlands be added to the present environmental preservation project and set a two-year deadline on the development of access to the new freeway from southbound I-5 and from Route 56 to northbound I-5.

The 2-mile western end of the North County freeway will link with I-5 at the present Carmel Valley Road. The remaining alignment of the 9-mile route is still to be set, although a portion of the route linking with I-15 in Rancho Penasquitos has been built.

Wolfsheimer called the decision to back the Carmel Valley freeway alignment “a most difficult one for me” but said that an alternate route, proposed two weeks ago by Del Mar resident Bill Watson, “simply wouldn’t work” because of its high cost and massive amount of grading.

She drove the southerly alternate route last week with state Department of Transportation officials last week in order to determine if there was a way to avoid the valley route which impacts residential neighborhoods in North City West and wetlands along Carmel Creek and in the Penasquitos Lagoon to the west.

Jerry Mailhot, a North City West resident and spokesman for the Carmel Valley Coalition which opposes the Carmel Valley routing, said the southerly route favored by the group would be less expensive and would be built more quickly because the valley alignment “will be held up indefinitely by litigation.”

Mailhot also suggested that the rush to approve the Route 56 alignment might be due to a wish to avoid pending state legislation which will require additional environmental mitigation for the valley wetlands taken by the freeway.

Councilman Wes Pratt commented that his office has been inundated with phone calls against the (Carmel Valley) alignment, but that he still favored the valley route because it caused the least adverse impacts of any routes studied by Caltrans engineers.

Voting against the alignment were Mayor Maureen O’Connor, Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt and Councilman John Hartley. Bernhardt said that she felt that all the environmental issues had not been addressed before the alignment was chosen and that there was no guarantee that the mid-section of Route 56 would be built.

A 4-mile stretch of the proposed freeway lies in the city’s “urban reserve” area where urban development cannot occur without citywide voter approval. There are no state or local transportation funds allocated to the mid-section.

The state Coastal Commission must also approve the Carmel Valley route before design and construction of the western portion of the new freeway can begin. The commission is expected to schedule hearings on Route 56 in late July and early August.

Councilman Bruce Henderson, admitting that “the automobile has become a scourge,” cast his vote for the freeway because of the growing traffic congestion on North County freeways and the need for an east-west highway in the North City area.