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Coast Highway Widening May Double in Cost

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The cost of widening a two-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach could jump from $4 million to more than $8 million because of unexpected construction costs and a higher-than-expected price tag for beach parkland along the route, transportation officials said Thursday.

In addition, plans to widen the stretch between Beach Boulevard and Brookhurst Street on the city’s southern edge are so far behind schedule that transportation officials fear the segment could become a traffic bottleneck.

Work on the project, originally set to begin in 1989, is not expected to get under way until early next year and be completed in 1993, said Walt Hagen, deputy district director in Orange County for the California Department of Transportation, which is handling the project.

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If all goes well, the effort to add a lane in each direction would be completed nearly two years after highway sections to the north and south have been widened.

Work on Coast Highway in Newport Beach between Highland Street and Newport Boulevard is expected to be finished in about a month, Hagen said. An expanded six-lane bridge over the nearby Santa Ana River will likely be completed in mid-1992, he said.

Huntington Beach officials, meanwhile, say they anticipate opening an additional lane in each direction between Beach Boulevard and Golden West Street by next spring.

“We anticipate that once it gets opened up to the north and to the south it’s going to become a problem,” Hagen said. “What it could end up becoming is a situation where there is an additional wait for motorists at traffic signals.”

The project was delayed primarily because of negotiations with the California Coastal Commission over various environmental requirements, Hagen said.

In particular, the commission wanted to ensure that environmentally sensitive sand dunes that will be leveled on the road’s eastern edge are re-created nearby. The dunes serve as a nesting place for various coastal birds and are scattered with a variety of plants.

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To re-create the dunes, Caltrans has been forced to purchase extra land along the route, which parallels Huntington State Beach, and the cost for right of way has risen.

In addition, Caltrans and the state Department of Parks and Recreation, which controls the beachfront property, have some “differences” over what the Transportation Department should pay for the right of way, Hagen said. Construction on Pacific Coast Highway Beach Blvd.: Work completed by spring, 1991 Magnolia St.: Work completed by early 1993 Newport Blvd.: Work completed by January, 1991 Bridge work completed by mid-1992

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