Supervisors Order Impact Study on Santiago Canyon Road Widening

The Board of Supervisors cleared one bureaucratic hurdle Tuesday for a controversial proposal to widen Santiago Canyon Road in southeastern Orange County.

The supervisors directed their planning staff to begin work on an environmental impact report on the possible widening of the county road between Jamboree Road and El Toro Road.

The goal of such a widening would be to accommodate 25,000 to 45,000 vehicle trips per day.

But the proposed widening has met resistance from residents of the canyon areas. At Tuesday’s board meeting, resident Sherry Meddick complained that county planners had refused to set up a meeting in the neighborhood to collect input from the people who have to live closest to the road.

“They have lied to the public all along,” she said afterward.

Meddick complained that the road already has a high number of traffic accidents and that widening it would only aggravate that situation. Also, she said, the only reason it might warrant widening is that county officials have allowed too much housing development in South Orange County, such as the Rancho Santa Margarita and the Mission Viejo communities, whose residents use Santiago Canyon Road as a shortcut to the Costa Mesa Freeway.

“This is the last rural county road left,” she said.

Meddick also said the supervisors were not following their own policies of building roads first to prevent congestion from added traffic generated by new homes.

“This is definitely a roads last plan,” she said.

County planners said the environmental report would examine the impact of widening the road to 62 feet, with four lanes of traffic going in both directions, in addition to 8-foot shoulders for a bicycle trail.

The report will also examine the impact of doing nothing or widening only part of the road.

Supervisors also directed the staff to improve traffic safety on Santiago Canyon Road and to coordinate any widening with plans for construction of the future Eastern Transportation Corridor, which will run roughly parallel to it but farther west.