State OKs Route 56, 24 Lanes Along I-5

The California Coastal Commission approved two major highway construction projects Thursday that will create a new east-west freeway and expand Interstates 5 and 805 to 24 lanes near Del Mar.

By a 5-4 vote, the commissioners ignored the advice of their staff in giving the go-ahead to the western portion of controversial Route 56--which will eventually link inland I-15 with coastal I-5 south of Del Mar--and to a series of expansion projects along I-5 from where it merges with I-805 north to Del Mar Heights Road.

A new six-lane freeway alongside I-5, truck lanes and a flyover interchange from the new cross-county freeway to southbound I-5 will widen the present I-5 bottleneck area to 24 lanes for a short distance.

Meanwhile, coastal residents protested that Route 56’s six east-west lanes would hurt their established residential neighborhoods in North City West and would destroy wetlands and views around Los Penasquitos Lagoon.

The commission’s staff had recommended against both construction projects, totaling $160 million, saying that measures proposed to offset destruction of coastal wildlife habitat around Los Penasquitos Lagoon and in Carmel Valley were inadequate. Staff members also protested that the state Department of Transportation and the city of San Diego had failed to consider less environmentally damaging routes and alternatives that would avoid the coastal lagoon area.

The San Diego City Council last month rescinded an earlier, controversial decision to link Route 56 at Carmel Valley, leaving the final decision on the western link’s location to the Coastal Commission.

Joan Jackson, spokeswoman for the San Diego Sierra Club, said after Thursday’s vote that the local club and the League for Coastal Protection will ask the national Sierra Club executive board to provide funds for a court challenge of the commission’s actions on the freeway projects, which would create the state’s largest freeway interchange.

Jackson said the fight against the projects “is far from over,” and cited the Sierra Club’s success in halting construction of the Sweetwater freeway, an east-west route between National City and Chula Vista, because of Caltrans’ failure to protect least terns’ nesting sites and other sensitive wetlands.

Del Mar Mayor Jan McMillan said she was “not surprised” at the commission decision.

“This is certainly not the end of the issue,” McMillan said.

Hannah Cohen, consultant to the Mid-County Transportation Commission, a group backing Route 56, disagreed.

“It has been a long, hard fight, and I see no more hurdles in our path to building Route 56,” she said.

The Sierra Club, National Audubon Society and other environmental protection groups protested that the immense widening project would intrude on the delicate wetlands around the coastal lagoon and would remove wildlife habitat, but Jack Grasberger, Caltrans chief deputy district director, said less than 1 acre of the 400-acre lagoon would be affected by the highway projects.

San Diego City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer earned the wrath of both sides by proposing that the commission approve east-west Route 56 through Carmel Valley but reject the Caltrans widening of Interstate 5.

Wolfsheimer, wearing a “Route 56 Now” button provided by supporters of the freeway, said that, “after 15 years of talk, talk, talk, the time to act is now.”

She said Route 56 is “not a luxury but a necessity” in order to ease traffic congestion on inland freeways and highways, and she accused opponents of the new highway of selfish neighborhood objections to a project of regional importance.

Surveys show that about 25% of the commuter traffic on inland I-15 is headed west, but must detour south to Mira Mesa Boulevard or Miramar Road to reach the coast.

Two busloads of San Diego County residents filled the commission meeting room and voiced opinions that varied sharply between inland and coastal residents.

Speakers from Rancho Penasquitos, Poway and Mira Mesa told of the tremendous traffic crunch faced by their communities because there is no direct route to the coast. But coastal residents demanded that commission uphold the California Environmental Quality Act, which created the Coastal Commission, and called the highway projects destructive, wasteful and ineffective.

Jerry Mailhot, spokesman for the Carmel Valley Coalition, which represents coastal residents along the western end of Route 56, said coalition members do not oppose the construction of the east-west freeway, but want it routed to the south of Carmel Valley over undeveloped land, where it would not affect established residential neighborhoods or the valley and lagoon environment. Caltrans engineers said the I-5 widening project would be rendered impractical by rerouting Route 56 and its interchange with I-5.

Jackson, speaking for the Los Penasquitos Lagoon Foundation, said the Caltrans widening project along I-5, which would start next year, “may well prove fatal to the lagoon.”

Several opponents of the freeway projects said that I-5 now operates at an undesirable level of “stop-and-go traffic” during peak hours, and that Caltrans reports show that it will continue to operate at that level after the widening.

San Diego City Councilman Wes Pratt, sitting in for absent Coastal Commissioner David Malcolm of Chula Vista, moved to approve the complex highway projects in one package.

“I am aware of the controversy” over Route 56, Pratt said, “but there is a significant problem with access to the coast, and that highway has been in the road plans since 1962.”

Coastal Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld urged the commission to go slowly in approving the freeway projects, pointing out that “the impacts of this are the most profound we have ever acted upon.”

Commissioner Lily Cervantes, after criticizing both Caltrans and the Coastal Commission staff for failing to find a more acceptable compromise proposal for the projects, cast the deciding vote for approval, bringing cheers from a group of about 40 proponents.