Environmentalists Call for Study of Toll Road

An environmental group is calling on the Federal Highway Administration to study whether a $644-million toll road through South County is really needed.

A traffic engineer hired by an environmental group has concluded that the toll road builders have not studied sufficiently whether South County needs the proposed road. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are also questioning whether the road is really needed--a turn of events that could cloud the project’s future.

“The analysis to date has been structured to determine which alignment is preferred rather than whether the facility is needed at all,” concluded the traffic engineer hired by the Endangered Habitats League, an environmental group that has criticized the proposed 16-mile Foothill South toll road.

League coordinator Dan Silver has asked the Federal Highway Administration--the chief federal agency overseeing the project--to use its power to require new studies assessing the need for the road that would link Oso Parkway with Interstate 5.

“Surely, it is not prudent to proceed on this huge, expensive and potentially risky project in the absence of adequate information on whether it is necessary in the first place,” Silver wrote in a letter to the Federal Highway Administration.

Highway officials will review the findings and respond to Silver’s letter, said Brad Keazer, assistant division administrator at the agency’s Sacramento office. He added that he understands that studies by the toll road’s builder, the Transportation Corridor Agencies, are consistent with traffic projections from the Southern California Assn. of Governments, which oversees transportation projects for the region.

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Corridor Agencies took issue with Silver’s contentions saying he is “jumping the gun” and that current studies are simply looking at whether traffic improvements are needed in South County.

Environmentalists are concerned that the road would destroy one of the region’s most pristine wilderness areas.