SAN CLEMENTE : Group to Protest at Corridor Hearing

A group of protesters plans to attend Thursday’s Transportation Corridor Agencies meeting at which board members are expected to vote on a controversial environmental impact report concerning the southern tip of the 30-mile Foothill Transportation Corridor.

Since the report was released in the summer of 1990, the agency has responded to criticism of the corridor by adding about 740 feet to the distance between the road and homes, designing split levels of the roadway to act as a noise buffer, and decreasing the amount of construction in San Onofre State Park.

But tollway opponents said the board has not appeased their concerns about air and water pollution, noise and more congestion. Group members, some of whom wore T-shirts reading “San Clementians Against the Tollroad,” gathered outside the City Council chambers last week carrying anti-tollway signs.

During the meeting, group member Bret Johnson pleaded with the council to “help stop the madness” by opposing the certification of the environmental impact report. “Saying growth is inevitable so we might as well build a toll road is like saying war is inevitable so let’s start one,” Johnson said.

Councilman Thomas Lorch was the only council member to voice opposition to the report. Lorch said the roadway will create congestion instead of ease it.

Mayor Scott Diehl, the city’s appointee to the Transportation Corridor Agencies board, pointed out that the South County is growing so fast that Interstate 5 cannot accommodate the traffic.

Diehl said he expects the board to approved the report, clearing the way for consideration of the Environmental Impact Statement, the federal version of the document. That process is expected to take three years, TCA official Lisa Telles said.

Construction on the southernmost portion of the $746-million Foothill Corridor is expected to begin in 1996. The entire project should be completed by the year 2000. The Foothill Corridor will connect the Eastern Transportation Corridor near Riverside to Interstate 5 in San Clemente.

The Transportation Corridor Agencies board will meet Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in the Santa Ana City Council chambers.