San Juan Residents Fear Tollway Impact : Traffic: Homeowners near proposed interchange say they will pay heavy price in noise, air quality.

It is a question that pops up in all corners of town, at the bar in the El Adobe, at City Hall and especially among the condominiums next to Interstate 5: What will the future highway do to quaint little San Juan?

That new highway, the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, will begin in Newport Beach and dump into Interstate 5 at San Juan Capistrano’s northern boundary, sending an estimated 45,000 more commuters chugging through town every day by the year 2010.

To handle the influx, Caltrans will expand Interstate 5 by four lanes at least partway through the city, bringing freeway traffic closer to local living rooms. On-ramps and off-ramps will also be built into local streets such as Rancho Viejo Road and Camino Capistrano, the latest name for a good portion of historic El Camino Real.

It is a vision that has people in this 200-year-old community worried.

“They’re going to dump everybody right in our laps,” said Mark Clancey, the president of the Friends of Historic San Juan Capistrano, a local group whose aim is to preserve the city’s history.

Among those most concerned are the homeowners of Village San Juan, a mid-1970s-era condominium complex that sits near the Mission Viejo border, the area closest to the new tollway interchange. Ramps could be situated within yards of them.

Dean Steinke, president of the 690-member Village San Juan homeowners association, is prepared for the worst.

“We’ll get more pollution, more noise and a slam on our property values,” Steinke said. “That corridor is coming in right at our front door.”

Steinke and more than 100 other Village San Juan residents were among those who packed City Hall on Dec. 11, demanding answers to their questions about the corridor. After attempting to field shouts from the crowd, Mayor Kenneth E. Friess scheduled a public meeting Jan. 8 at a larger place, the auditorium at Marco F. Forster Junior High School.

Friess, who also happens to be vice chairman of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor board of directors, is the man on the spot. But he does not argue that the impacts on the city won’t be felt.

“Absolutely, there’s no question it will affect us,” Friess said of the coming corridor. “I’ve been saying that at City Council meetings for the last three years. But my point has been that there are two sides to this thing, both negative and positive impacts.”

On the negative side, Friess said, the interchange of the two freeways will in itself present a problem. The design of the interchange is currently a matter of hot debate.

“Creating that will be a very negative process, both during construction, which will have a huge impact to the surrounding area, and, also, when it is finished,” Friess said. “No matter what its design, we’ll have a very significant structure that will traverse the valley.”

The construction alone will continue about three years, scheduled for completion in 1995.

But he also contends that the new corridor ultimately will be good for the community.

“In spite of what opponents say, the corridor eventually will alleviate traffic congestion on I-5 in our area,” Friess said. “It will provide another way for people to move through the area, which will give us some relief.”

In addition, Friess claims, the new roadway will get people off the local streets.

“Sure there will be more cars on I-5 as a result, but that means they will be getting off our streets like Camino Capistrano and Rancho Viejo Road,” he said. “Those people can use the freeway for their north-south access.”

Despite Friess’ claims, the city staff has fired off a letter to the corridor agency, demanding answers for what it terms “notable deficiencies” in the draft environmental impact report. Among those deficiencies are failures to address traffic impacts on San Juan Capistrano city streets, noise carried to the adjoining neighborhoods, and the effect on air quality.

Those are some of the same concerns Clancey says he and his preservationist group have raised all along. But the City Council favors the project, and city officials never asked residents what they thought, he said.

“Our biggest concern is that during all of this time, the City Council has never taken any input on whether the city should be supporting this project in the first place,” he said. “On what basis does the city favor this project? We think this has to be brought back to square one, out of the closet and into the public light.”

Russ Burkett, another vocal corridor critic whose home overlooks the freeway, said, “We’re going to have a full-blown El Toro Y right in our city,” referring to the nickname of another freeway interchange a few miles to the north in El Toro.

But Friess, a member of the City Council for 14 years, said traffic will continue to increase, corridor or no. The new highway, he said, will only ease it.

“If people could convince me that it would be better for the community to not build the corridor, I’d listen to that,” he said. “But no one has given me that argument. People say there will be more noise, more pollution and more traffic with the corridor. But those things will be here with or without the corridor. We have a problem, one we didn’t create, and we have to take actions to fix it.

“Besides, in terms of a total number of cars for this area, the corridor does not alter the projections. Those cars are coming here with or without the corridor.”