Collision on Proposed Road

On a trail map of the Santa Ana Mountains, Sheri McNeil has drawn the path of a highway Riverside County would like to push through the hills to accommodate the region’s fast-growing population.

The road goes right through Orange County’s wilderness areas and skirts historic Modjeska Canyon, where McNeil and her family live close to nature in a two-story cedar house surrounded by oak trees.

The route, one of four alternatives to bring traffic over the mountains, heads down the deep V of Harding Canyon and crosses Limestone Canyon and Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park on its way to the Foothill/Eastern toll roads. It also passes Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary.

“Nobody wants this,” McNeil said, after hiking 25 minutes from Modjeska to a promontory overlooking the highway site. “This thing could go right through our backyards. There’s no consideration for what already exists here.”

If McNeil’s view is any indication of public sentiment, Riverside County will have to overcome more than rugged terrain to build a transportation corridor to Orange County through the Cleveland National Forest.

“It is our responsibility to demonstrate the need, and we have not been successful yet in Orange County,” said Riverside County Supervisor Tom Mullen, a leading proponent of the highway. “We have a lot of work to do.”

Many Riverside County officials believe a new transportation corridor--such as a highway or tunnel--is inevitable given the region’s rapid growth and the inability of existing roads to handle the crush of commuters heading to Orange County from the Inland Empire.

Resistance to the proposal is coming from environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, which have proposed wilderness preserves near or in the paths of possible routes. Joining them are people who live in Orange County’s canyon hamlets, such as Silverado and Modjeska, who fear a freeway will destroy the isolation and beauty of their rural villages.

In Silverado, steep, chaparral-covered hillsides tower over scores of rustic houses along a narrow road. Modjeska, with about 300 homes, has a canopy of oak, sycamore and pine trees. Mountain bikers and hikers fill the nearby hills. People move and visit there to escape the bustle of the city.

Recent polling by the Orange County Transportation Authority shows that majorities of likely voters, business leaders, elected officials and environmentalists oppose a highway or tunnel through the Santa Ana Mountains.

Some local officials contend that Riverside County appears to be making major transportation decisions without consulting officials in Orange County, where the impact would be greatest. They say they’d rather explore other ways to relieve congestion, such as improving the Riverside Freeway.

To date, Riverside County officials have selected possible routes and introduced state legislation to get money for a study and establish a steering committee of mostly Riverside-area representatives. They also have asked the Orange County Transportation Authority to contribute $500,000 for environmental assessments.

“I’ve repeatedly heard complaints that Riverside County was not trying to find a solution,” said Stan Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Business Council. “It was trying to dictate one.”

Riverside County officials say, however, that their neighbors will be fairly represented and hope to meet with Orange County officials soon and talk about creating a working group.

“We are trying to facilitate discussions,” said Assemblyman Rod Pacheco (R-Riverside), who sponsored the legislation related to the corridor proposal. “There is a pervasive feeling in Riverside County that something has to be done.”

Preliminary plans call for a 15- to 20-mile corridor that would cross the highest reaches of the Santa Ana Mountains with a combination of tunnels and bridges before descending through the forest’s remotest canyons. The majority of the corridor would be in Orange County.

Under consideration are four routes that start at Interstate 15 in Riverside County and traverse the Cleveland National Forest. With one exception, the roads end at the Foothill/Eastern toll roads in Orange County.

The most northerly route would cross Bedford, Ladd and Limestone canyons before tying into the Foothill/Eastern toll roads south of Irvine Lake. It would pass west of Silverado Canyon.

A second proposal would cross rugged Coldwater, Harding and Williams canyons, skirt the village in Modjeska Canyon, and end at Foothill toll road. The road would cross two parks--Limestone Canyon and Whiting Ranch--set aside as mitigation for development.

Another route would start near Lake Elsinore and go through the Trabuco Canyon area before terminating at the Foothill toll road in Rancho Santa Margarita. The highway would cross O’Neill Regional Park and forestland the federal government said should be left untouched.

The most southerly route calls for the widening and realignment of Ortega Highway, a two-lane road in rural Orange County that is fast becoming a commuter link for workers from south Riverside County.

Planners say the realigned highway would cross Hot Springs Canyon and Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park before veering back on its existing path through some of San Juan Capistrano’s more exclusive neighborhoods. It would end at the congested interchange with the San Diego Freeway.

The new route could cost $1 billion to $2 billion, an amount that might be difficult to raise. Caltrans has had little money for major projects, and Riverside County does not have the funds to build even the county roads it has planned.

Nevertheless, Riverside officials say the highway is needed because the population of the Inland Empire is expected to double to about 6 million people by 2020.

Current Roadways Not Ready for More Cars

The Riverside Freeway now handles about 270,000 cars at rush hour, most of them carrying workers from San Bernardino and Riverside counties to and from Los Angeles and Orange counties.

If trends continue, at least 400,000 cars from San Bernardino and Riverside counties will jam the freeway during rush hour by 2020. Consequently, the typical rush-hour trip from Lake Elsinore to Irvine would increase from about 90 minutes today to almost three hours in 2020.

The only other route from Riverside into Orange County is Ortega Highway, built in the late 1920s and considered one of the most dangerous rural routes in the state.

Besides the increasing number of motorists, Riverside County officials say the Inland Empire is fast becoming a distribution and warehouse center for retailers and manufacturers throughout Southern California. There are plans, they say, to move more than a million tons of air cargo a year through former March Air Force Base.

Orange County’s participation in a new highway is crucial, proponents say, because its economy relies heavily on labor from the Inland Empire as well as goods shipped by rail and truck from warehouses in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“The biggest challenge we have is to prove to the public that this is a good thing, that it will not reduce the quality of life,” said Borre Winckel, executive director of the Building Industry Assn. of Riverside County. “Until we do that, we don’t have a project.”

Orange County leaders agree the counties are inextricably linked, but their priority is to improve and expand the Riverside Freeway to reduce congestion. Riverside County officials don’t think it will be enough.

The sides have had difficulty coming together to discuss the issues. Riverside is suing Caltrans and the operators of four private toll lanes on the freeway to end agreements that have blocked lane additions to the public freeway. Orange County has supported the Express Lanes.

“We’ve been in a stalemate,” said Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer, whose district contains several of the highway proposals. “Access through the forest is a nonstarter for any discussion. It won’t meet with a good reception here, and we can’t talk about the 91 because of the litigation. But we need to talk about the 91.”

The potential fixes to the freeway include express buses, more rail service, reversible lanes, adding lanes or decks of roadway, and buying out the owner of the privately owned Express Lanes. Planners say the need to commute can be reduced further if Riverside County attracts more employers, and Orange County builds more affordable housing.

Local leaders also question the paths of the four proposed canyon routes, saying they conflict with planning goals of Orange County cities and do not go to the county’s northern and central employment centers.

Environmentally, the routes pass near or across wildlife habitat, regional and wilderness parks, conservation preserves, a National Audubon Society sanctuary at Starr Ranch, and parts of the forest that were never meant to carry roads.

U.S. Forest service officials, who are participating in the highway planning, say a major road might fragment the Cleveland National Forest, particularly in the northern section.

“The national forest cannot be used to mitigate poor planning,” said Mike Boeck, an environmental activist and member of the Inter-Canyon League, a coalition of mountain communities in Orange County. “Someone has to say no and mean it.”

City Council members in Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo already have voted to oppose the Trabuco Canyon route. They, along with Supervisor Spitzer, have requested that Orange County cities affected by the proposed corridors be added to the steering committee proposed by Pacheco.

The Trabuco option, which has been described as the most favorable route, would cross O’Neill Regional Park as well as proposed wilderness preserves. Rancho Santa Margarita council members fear their new city would be inundated with traffic, and that homes, churches, an elementary school and commercial property would have to be moved or demolished.

“It seems totally arbitrary to tear up infrastructure without consulting our city first,” Rancho Santa Margarita Councilman Gary Thompson said. “We have never been contacted by any Riverside official before or after our vote.”

Multiuse Tunnel May Be the Solution

Some regional planners and civil engineers believe the solution might not be a conventional highway with all its political and environmental complications, but a multiuse tunnel that stretches 10 to 12 miles beneath the northern part of the Cleveland National Forest.

The route would accommodate trucks, trains, cars, oil pipelines and utilities in three tunnels built next to each other. Supporters say advances in tunneling, particularly in Europe and Asia, have adequately demonstrated the feasibility of such a project.

Though giant vents would release exhaust from the tunnel over the forest, supporters say the environmental impacts would be less for a tunnel compared with a six- or eight-lane highway cutting a swath through the mountains.

The real problem might be the price: $2 billion to $3 billion. Proponents say, however, that financing could come from a consortium of private companies or a partnership between government and business.

Bill Vardoulis, a former mayor of Irvine and member of the OCTA board, has kept the idea alive for years, largely, he says, “out of frustration” with present transportation systems. While some business and government leaders are interested, the concept has not received any official support yet.

“Our leaders are accomplishing nothing in regional transportation,” Vardoulis said. “Nobody’s really developing a plan to resolve the area’s most pressing problem--surface transportation. This is the answer, not double-decking the 91 Freeway.”