Foes Demand That Council Detour Route 56 : Transit: They say their 45,000 petition signatures mean the city must either rescind its action on the western end of the link or put the issue to a public vote.

Opponents of a major east-west freeway linking inland communities with the coast at Del Mar submitted petitions with about 45,000 signatures Wednesday demanding that the San Diego City Council rescind its action routing the road through Carmel Valley and the planned community of North City West.

Jerry Mailhot, spokesman for the Carmel Valley Coalition, a group seeking to detour the future freeway south of North City West, said that, if 28,500 of the referendum petition signatures are found to be valid, the council will be forced to rescind its rezoning actions on the western end of the 9-mile freeway or place the issue before city voters.

The citywide vote option could be a very expensive one for the city, said Michael Haas, deputy director of the city clerk’s office. Because of a legislative recess scheduled in August, the City Council must act on the referendum issue by Tuesday or face the prospect of calling a special election at a cost of about $850,000, Haas said.

If the measure qualifies, it could be placed on the ballot at a cost of $35,000 to $40,000, Haas said, “and we are going to do our utmost to meet the (Tuesday) deadline, to give the council the opportunity to place it on the Nov. 6 ballot.”

Petition signature checks can take up to a month, Haas said, but added that “we think that it is worth the money to request the registrar of voters to work double shifts to meet the deadline.”

“I think that we can make it,” Haas said.

Mailhot acknowledged there has not been time for the Carmel Valley Coalition to make an exact count of signatures gathered in the monthlong effort, because the deadline for submission was 5 p.m. Wednesday.

“We were concerned for a while that we wouldn’t reach our goal of 45,000 signatures, but there was a last-minute surge of volunteer support that put us over the top,” Mailhot said.

City Atty. John Witt had ruled earlier that a referendum drive to reverse the council decision was not proper because it was aimed at an administrative decision involving certification of an environmental report on the proposed freeway.

But Witt said Wednesday that the referendum move was proper if it referred to a rezoning action involving the western end of Route 56 through Carmel Valley.

“We want to reserve the right to take a good look at this petition, see what it really says, before we make a final ruling on its legality,” Witt said.

Mailhot said the petition signatures were gathered by volunteers and paid circulators during a 30-day period following the final council action approving the western end of the freeway, putting it through Carmel Valley and North City West.

Carmel Valley Coalition leaders argue that the decision would lead to destruction of sensitive coastal wetlands and disruption of developed residential areas by using the Carmel Valley route for the western terminus of Route 56 when an uninhabited mesa to the south of North City West would provide a shorter, less expensive connection with Interstate 5.

State transportation engineers dispute the coalition’s argument, saying the southern route across Del Mar Mesa would require extensive grading, could cost up to $100 million more than the Carmel Valley route and would connect with I-5 too close to the I-5 junction with I-805 to allow traffic to merge safely on the three major routes.

Route 56, which has been in state transportation plans since 1966, would link with I-15 at Rancho Penasquitos and would provide a much-needed highway link between I-15 and I-5, the two North County interstate routes. The only existing east-west highway in North County is California 78, which links Oceanside with Escondido.

Mailhot said much of the last-minute surge in signature-gathering came from other disgruntled suburban residents in the Miramar Lake and Scripps Ranch area and from Sierra Club members and other environmental groups.

The Carmel Valley Coalition and the Del Mar Terrace Conservancy, another local group seeking to protect Penasquitos Lagoon and other wetlands, have filed suit against the City Council in another effort to halt construction of Route 56 through Carmel Valley.

The suit charges that the council violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to study other routes that would cause less environmental damage than the Carmel Valley one.

The suit also alleges that the city failed to follow state environmental regulations requiring that the negative impacts of all related projects be considered when approving one segment of a project.

The city failed to consider the impacts of construction of the remaining 7-mile portion of Route 56 and of major freeway widening and interchange construction scheduled for I-5 in the Del Mar area, the suit contends.