MISSION VIEJO : ‘New El Toro Y’ Worries Council

Concerned that the planned Avery Parkway interchange of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor and Interstate 5 could become a new El Toro Y, the City Council this week voiced its complaints to corridor agency officials.

Two options for the corridor’s ending point at Avery Parkway are now being considered for the tollway, which would link the Corona del Mar Freeway with Mission Viejo.

One option would drop the tollway onto Interstate 5 without disturbing Avery Parkway near its intersection with Camino Capistrano and Paseo de Colinas. The second option would interrupt Avery by extending Via Escolar under Interstate 5 to connect with Camino Capistrano.

Councilman William S. Craycraft worried that the first option would create a bottleneck similar to the El Toro Y, where the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways converge.

“At some point in time, someone testified before a public agency, saying that the El Toro Y was well-planned, well-designed and would have no problems,” Craycraft said. “There has got to be some way to look beyond the ends of our noses on this (San Joaquin Hills) project.”

Other worries include the potentially increased congestion on Crown Valley Parkway due to traffic from a planned tollway interchange at Greenfield Drive in Laguna Niguel, and the use of outdated traffic statistics for six-lane Crown Valley Parkway.