Plan to Widen I-5 Near Del Mar Hits a Roadblock

The California Coastal Commission’s staff, fearing environmental damage, has recommended that the full commission reject proposals to widen Interstate 5 near Del Mar and build an east-west freeway linking Del Mar and Rancho Penasquitos.

The recommendation drew an angry response Wednesday from Jack Grasberger, chief deputy district director of the state Department of Transportation, who said the $160 million in highway projects are “vital to future transportation needs in the region.”

He said that Caltrans will fight the recommendation when the commission meets Sept. 13 to hear the issue.

San Diego and Caltrans planners proposed widening Interstate 5 north of its junction with Interstate 805 to beyond Del Mar Heights Road and building a portion of Route 56, which eventually would link inland Interstate 15 with I-5 at Carmel Valley. The projects must win commission approval to go ahead.

Deborah Lee, regional coastal program manager for the commission, said the staff’s recommendation to reject both projects was based on Caltrans’ “failure to consider all alternatives” for the major freeways, including ones that would not intrude on Penasquitos Lagoon, the Carmel Valley wetlands and other sensitive coastal areas.

“We are just not convinced that they (the City of San Diego and Caltrans) have explored all feasible alternatives to these routes,” Lee said. “And, if there is to be destruction of sensitive wetlands and riparian habitat, we want a great deal more than they are proposing in mitigation,” she added.

Grasberger said he was “very disappointed” with the recommendation and called Caltrans’ proposal to create a 110-acre open space in Carmel Valley east of I-5 a factor that far outweighs any environmental damage from the highway projects.

“We have the money, and we have the approval from (the state Department of) Fish and Game and a number of other agencies,” the Caltrans official said, lamenting the commission staff’s sudden action.

Plans call for widening I-5 north of the I-5/I-805 junction from its existing eight lanes to 17 to 19 lanes in a dual freeway system that would include an interchange with Route 56, which eventually will provide a six-lane freeway link east from the coast to I-15.

The 4.5-mile I-5 widening project would extend into about 35 to 50 acres of river and coastal habitat. The commission staff recommends that that loss be offset by requiring 150 to 200 acres of replacement habitat, plus “aesthetic and environmental amenities” to make the freeways and the areas around them “much more pleasing to the eye,” Lee said.

San Diego City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer said she stands firmly in favor of the Route 56 east-west linkage, but opposed to the I-5 widening, which, she said, “simply is not needed and would just create a traffic jam somewhere else.”

She said she will appear at the commission meeting in Marina del Rey to ask commissioners to sever the two projects, approving Route 56 and turning down the I-5 widening.

Also expected at the hearing are groups from inland communities of Poway, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos and Carmel Mountain Ranch that favor construction of the cross-county link to the coast, and Carmel Valley Coalition members from North City West and Del Mar Heights who seek to have Route 56 detoured to the south to avoid their coastal communities and the Penasquitos Lagoon area.