S.D. Highway Route Given Green Light

The western end of California Route 56, the 1.8-mile section of a controversial highway that planners envision as the link between coastal Interstate 5 and inland Interstate 15, was given the green light Friday by a state appellate court.

The 4th District Court of Appeal, rejecting claims by a coalition of environmentalists and Del Mar residents, said there were no legal grounds to overturn the San Diego City Council’s 1990 approval of the highway through fast-growing North City West.

Even if Route 56 is never completed, the court said, the 1.8-mile segment has “independent utility,” the court said, an essential legal requirement for highways built in bits and pieces. The segment, the court said, will ease existing traffic congestion along what is now Carmel Valley Road, North City West’s primary east-west road.

The full highway is planned to run through one of San Diego’s last vast open spaces, thousands of acres of shrub-covered canyons, mesas and rolling hills from Del Mar to Rancho Penasquitos. The court said there was “substantial evidence” that the City Council fairly considered the environmental impact of the entire highway before approving the western segment.

Construction of the $24-million segment, which had begun in August but proceeded slowly while the 4th District Court weighed the merits of the 1.8-mile stretch of road, is likely to resume soon at full speed, officials said Friday.

Already, said Leslie J. Gerard, a deputy city attorney, crews have built temporary roads and relocated sewers. “What this basically means is that (crews) can go forward with more confidence there won’t be any more interruptions,” Gerard said Friday.

The only remaining legal roadblock would be a further appeal by the Del Mar Terrace Conservancy, the loose group of homeowners and environmentalists opposed to Route 56. Gerald Tracy, a management consultant and the conservancy president, said Friday that his group has already spent $200,000 on legal fees and another appeal is uncertain.

“We had input from attorneys saying there was a 50-50 chance at best that we’d come out with some positive direction from the (4th District) appellate court. Some attorneys indicted this was a winnable case,” Tracy said Friday. “I’m disappointed for the people who live in the area.”

In one form or another, Route 56 has been a part of San Diego’s highway plans since 1959. Originally planned as a link between La Jolla and Route 67 east of Poway, the city and the California Department of Transportation have identified it in recent years as the connector between I-5 and I-15.

In 1985, San Diego voters passed Proposition A, a managed growth initiative. It made the open space between Del Mar and Rancho Bernardo off limits to urbanizing, including highways, unless a development was approved by a citywide vote.

Because of that 1985 vote, the city and Caltrans have not made formal plans for Route 56 through the open space. Instead, the city and Caltrans developed plans for Route 56 East, from Rancho Penasquitos to I-15, and Route 56 West, from North City West to I-5.

Route 56 East has been built, on either side of I-15 near Rancho Penasquitos. Originally dubbed North City Parkway, it got a new name in July: Ted Williams Parkway.

As designed, Route 56 West would convert a 1.8-mile stretch of Carmel Valley Road to a four-lane freeway running from half a mile east of I-5 to a point half a mile east of Carmel Country Road. Eventually, six lanes are possible, according to Caltrans.

In addition to the 1.8-mile road, Caltrans has promised to build a drainage channel to protect wetlands surrounding Los Penasquitos Creek to the west, just across I-5.

In May, 1990, the City Council approved Route 56 West, certifying an environmental impact report as adequate and complete.

The Del Mar Terrace Conservancy took the city and Caltrans to court. The Sierra Club also went to court, filing a separate suit challenging the California Coastal Commission’s approval of Route 56 West.

In September, 1991, San Diego Superior Court Judge Barbara Gamer ruled for the city and Caltrans. The conservancy appealed.

The Sierra Club settled its suit with the Coastal Commission in July after receiving guarantees of mitigation against wetlands damage. That left only the conservancy suit.

And, in its ruling Friday, the 4th District Court made plain that there is little merit to the conservancy’s claims.

The conservancy claimed that the environmental impact report approved by the city was inadequate, missing volumes of relevant studies and documents.

Judge Richard D. Huffman said some material was left out. But the final environmental impact report includes a history and background of Route 56 dating to 1959, with ample citations to reference material, Huffman said.

The conservancy claimed that it is unfair to consider Route 56 West in isolation, without taking into account the environmental impact of a complete Route 56.

To the extent possible, Huffman said, the council-approved report does consider the regional significance of the completed highway, even analyzing noise and smog impacts on an assumption that Route 56 West is connected to I-15.

But, he said, it is not clear whether Route 56 will ever be built through the open space voters set aside in 1985. The City Council, he said, had the legal right to approve an environmental impact report for Route 56 West without having to account for every uncertainty of a complete Route 56.

Regardless, Huffman said, Route 56 West meets the legal test of “independent utility,” a federal standard applied for the first time by a court in California.

Under that standard, authorities do not need to prepare the environmental impact statement federal law would otherwise require for an entire highway corridor when a road meets localized needs.

The two on-ramps from Carmel Valley Road to I-5 already are stop and go, Huffman said. If Carmel Valley Road isn’t built out, he said, studies show that traffic off and on I-5 will be “extremely crowded” by the year 2010, even if the pace of growth in North City West slows.

Judges Don R. Work and Gilbert Nares joined the opinion.