LAGUNA HILLS / LAGUNA NIGUEL : Cabot Road’s Missing Link to Be Filled In

For years, motorists wanting to drive between the eastern borders of Laguna Niguel and Laguna Hills have had to use Interstate 5 between Oso and Crown Valley parkways. No surface streets serve as a main thoroughfare between those two roadways.

Now, construction is underway on a quarter-mile section of Cabot Road in Laguna Niguel that should help residents in their local commuting while lessening the infamous freeway jams.

“Once it opens up, it’ll provide some relief for the I-5 between Oso Parkway and Crown Valley,” said Ken Montgomery, Laguna Niguel’s public works director. “This will provide a real nice linkage for people going north-south, without having to get on the 5.”

The $2.2-million project, funded by the county, will make the four-lane Cabot Road an uninterrupted drive between Crown Valley Parkway in Laguna Niguel and Oso Parkway in Laguna Hills.

Plans for filling in the missing quarter-mile link, just south of Rapid Falls Road, have been on county engineers’ drawing boards for 15 to 20 years, long before either of the two cities were incorporated, said William Zaun, the county’s public works director. “It’s just been waiting for funding to be available,” he said.

Money for the project is being drawn from the Coastal Area Road Improvement and Traffic Signal fund, a regional depository of developers’ fees, Montgomery said.

Under pressure from residents and elected officials to complete the missing link, the county offered last year to oversee the project if Laguna Niguel would assume maintenance responsibilities once the project is finished. The city agreed.

Construction work by Sully-Miller Contracting Co. of Orange began in October, 1992, and is expected to be completed in March or April, 1994, Zaun said.

Grading crews are cutting through hills to make the connection and will haul away an estimated 170,000 cubic yards of dirt, Montgomery said.

Bob Peterson, the county’s transportation planning manager, said the new section of Cabot Road is expected to carry about 19,000 cars a day, about 5,000 of which would have otherwise driven the freeway.

The new road should also reduce traffic levels on other north-south thoroughfares, such as Moulton Parkway in Laguna Niguel and Laguna Hills and Marguerite Parkway in Mission Viejo, and ease cut-through traffic in the Nellie Gail Ranch area, planners say.