SAN CLEMENTE : Plans to Reopen Highway Lanes OKd

The City Council this week approved plans to reopen lanes along a three-quarter mile stretch of Coast Highway by next summer.

The highway, from Avenida Pico to Camino Capistrano, was shut down in February, 1990, when city workers clearing a small landslide noticed deep fissures, some as wide as 6 feet, in the 50-foot cliffs.

After some initial grading of the area, a portion of the road, also known as El Camino Real, was partially reopened in May, 1990, with one lane of traffic in each direction.

But some residents complained to the council this week that the narrowed road is too dangerous. They urged officials to speed bluff reconstruction work so that road-repair work can get started.

“It’s been closed much too long,” said former Mayor Karoline Koester. “It’s a deathtrap down there and I don’t drive it anymore. The city should consider it an emergency and get that road open again.”

Councilwoman Candace Haggard agreed. She voted to widen the road to two traffic lanes in each direction. “We really have to move ahead and get this road opened to all four lanes,” she said.

City officials warned, however, that the highway may have to be completely closed for as long as two weeks during bluff reconstruction work, said Jim Pechuous, associate city planner.

“We’re working against a summer deadline,” Pechuous said. “We would rather have the road closed in the spring because it’s very important to have it open for tourist traffic in the summer.”

Several local business owners have complained that the road problem is making public access more difficult, slowing sales.

But the city’s bluff restoration work still awaits approval by the California Coastal Commission, which could take three to six months, Pechuous said.

City residents have suffered from a series of landslides over the past 16 years, including a rock fall in 1979, which resulted in the closure of a section of Coast Highway for several months.