Carlsbad City Council Takes Issue with I-5 Expansion Plans!

Council takes issue with I-5 expansion plans

by Alyx Sariol Coast News Group

 

CARLSBAD — City staff reported Nov. 16 that they have found Caltrans’ proposed I-5 widening project plans to contain insufficient details and lacking in clarity on its impact to Carlsbad if the project moves forward.

Staff’s statement on the project’s shortcomings came after months spent reviewing the detailed Draft Environmental Impact Report and Study, or EIR/EIS. They presented the analysis to City Council members at a workshop Nov. 16.

Senior Planner Scott Donnell and other staff members highlighted “significant concerns” in the proposal, including a lack of transparency on the project’s impact to Carlsbad.

“The analysis of impacts to Carlsbad is incomplete and the information provided is inadequate,” Donnell said. “The EIR needs to be revised to clarify that.”

Proposed impacts include the replacement of bridges and under crossings; additional High Occupancy Vehicle lanes; sound wall barriers; and the addition of Direct Access Ramps, Donnell said.

Staff cited concerns with these plans, like the projected loss of lagoon and farmland along I-5 and an increase in noise and pollution that has not been slated for mitigation by sound walls in some areas.

Donnell also noted that Caltrans conducted an “inadequate analysis of our city policies,” while also neglecting the coastal policy and city noise regulations.

In addition to the widening construction, Caltrans has designated $50 million for “community enhancement projects” for property within the project’s footprint.

They include trail connections at various points in Carlsbad, as well as beautification of the La Costa Park and Ride area.

“It’s an attempt by Caltrans to mitigate some of the other impacts of the project,” Director of Transportation Skip Hammann said.

Hammann noted that the earmarked budget for improvement projects is more than necessary to complete them, and Caltrans is open to other project ideas from city staff.

Hammann discussed several projects suggested by staff members, including a realignment of Carlsbad Boulevard and Palomar Airport Road; Carlsbad Village Drive gateway improvements; and the expansion of Chestnut Avenue, linking Holiday Park with Pine Avenue Park.

Hammann provided a rough estimate of an additional $50 million to complete staff’s recommended projects.

“We can ask for these things, but how likely is it that Caltrans will consider them, we don’t know,” Hammann said.

Caltrans will consider Carlsbad staff’s comments and suggestions, as well as other public input, before releasing their preferred widening alternative and a final EIR/EIS. They are expected to release a decision sometime next year.

San Diego County residents are encouraged to comment on the project by the Nov. 22 deadline. Comments can be made online at www.keepsandiegomoving.com/I-5-Corridor/I-5-intro.aspx

Read more: Coast News Group - Making Waves in Your Neighborhood

Solana Beach Staff & Consultants Report

A small but enthusiastic crowd welcomed the Solana Beach staff and consultants who reviewed their 196 page report(available on the City of Solana Beach web page) on the effects of the proposed expansion on the City of Solana Beach.

The report criticizes the CalTrans Draft Environmental Impact Report for being “ambiguous and unstable”.  The Draft EIR discusses the legally required NO BUILD option and four options that call for expansion of the existing freeway.It does not, as legally required, state a Preferred Option and it does not discuss other mass transit options.  Experts hired by Solana Beach described this report as not in compliance with State and Federal law and in need of being totally recalled, rewritten and then re-circulated.  Council Member Dave Roberts stated that “we should get our money back from CalTrans” for having to expend $80,000 to prepare this report.

Recent reports on the effect of the I-5 expansion on the cities of Del Mar, Carlsbad and Oceanside are now available. The Oceanside report describes in detail the extremely negative impact of the proposed expansion on the city and its residents and questions the modest improvement, if any.   The Carlsbad and Del Mar reports are both very critical of the methodology, the omissions of key sections (greenhouse gas emission, air pollution) and the totally ambivalent nature of the report make it nearly impossible to comment on.  The general consensus:  the Draft EIR was a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.

Don’t forget to get comments in to CalTrans by the deadline:  Tuesday of next week.

Send to:           Shay Lynn Harrison, Environmental Analysis Branch Chief

                        CA Department of Transportation – District 11

                        Division of Environmental Analysis, MS 242

                        4050 Taylor Street

                        San Diego , CA   92110

Electronic Mail:  I-5_NCC_EIR_EIS@dot.ca.gov

  

Steve Goetsch

Solana Beach , CA

COMMUNITY COMMENTARY: Protect coast from freeway expansion

COMMUNITY COMMENTARY: Protect coast from freeway expansion

by Mindy Martin

Courtesy of The Coast News Group

  Coast News Group

I recently attended a meeting organized by citizens and the Sierra Club regarding proposed expansions to the 5 freeway. I am embarrassed to say that, before this meeting, I was largely unaware of this project. It was no secret. This publication has run a few stories. The city councils have been mulling it over for a while now. And, of course, citizens groups have already organized an opposition! Yet, even though I live less than a mile west of the freeway in Oceanside, I had no idea about the monstronsity Caltrans is planning.

A recent transplant from the East Coast, I like to joke that the state of California finds itself in such a mess because the weather and the views are so lovely that people just don’t care about politics. I’m beginning to see that there is some truth to that, and I fell into the trap. I volunteer, but it occurs to me now that I only get involved with feel-good projects. Like so many people, I’m turned off by the tenor of local politics and exhausted by what seems to be a wildly inefficient process. Like so many other people, I’ve been leaving the work, the oversight and the standing up to someone else.

Well, not any longer. After listening to the presentation and doing some thinking and research of my own, I’ve come to the following conclusions:

First, the Sierra Club, like Caltrans, has a bias. It also seems clear that some of the citizens organizing the meeting are something shy of moderate. I strongly support conservationist causes, too. All fine, but this is not merely an environmental issue; it is a community issue. One need not be an environmentalist to acknowledge the aesthetic value of the coastal and lagoon views. Obscuring those assets with concrete sound walls is a bad idea. One need not be an environmentalist to be concerned about construction over the lagoons, especially given the 40-year completion horizon. And, one need not be an environmentalist to realize that a freeway the size of the 15 will bring noise and traffic that will forever transform the beach cities.

Second, everything I read and my own intuition suggests that more lanes only encourage more people to drive. And, once the congestion returns (if you’re not convinced that it returns, take a trip up to L.A.), we have the same traffic and the same poor public transit system — with no money for improvements. A $4.1 billion freeway project surely saps resources and removes the immediate incentive to develop transit and/or explore innovative alternatives to congestion problems, like getting freight off the freeway or re-routing trucks during rush hour. Right now, we have a fantastic train that is almost entirely useless, and prohibitively expensive, for commuting. Perhaps, we could use a fraction of these dollars to work on that?

Finally, we cannot rely on our elected officials to handle this for us. Since the meeting took place in Carlsbad, two Carlsbad mayoral candidates, both of whom presently serve as

councilmen, attended. Keith Blackburn said he had yet to take a position on the expansion. There is a lot of information, he said, and he just hadn’t made up his mind. Initially, Matt Hall was similarly noncommittal. But, as he explained that this was very complicated, that council had been reviewing this for years, I leapt to my feet with the obvious follow-up. “How, then, can you have no position?” Ultimately, he said he supported some expansion, though not the whole enchilada. I wondered if he held back because the election was so close or because he sensed that it was a tough room.

I’m sure these are good men. But their job is to juggle interests, and the citizens’ are just one among many. The bottom line is that we cannot assume that our representatives know what we want or share our views. We have to tell them, demand action and go around them when necessary.

Join your neighbors Citizens Against Freeway Expansion on Facebook and I-5 Plague website at www.i-5plague.com/. Both have instructions to submit comments/questions. The deadline in Nov. 22.

Mindy Martin is an Oceanside resident.

Read more: Coast News Group - COMMUNITY COMMENTARY Protect coast from freeway expansion

Project to expand I-5 continues to draw community opposition

Project to expand I-5 continues to draw community opposition

by Bianca Kaplanek

 

Courtesy of The Coast News

  Coast News Group

COAST CITIES — Two weeks before a Nov. 22 deadline to comment on a proposal to expand Interstate 5, two public hearings were held to address the project. Although the Nov. 8 events were different, the message was the same.

Despite claims from the California Department of Transportation, lead agency for the project, few in North County believe widening the freeway will relieve congestion. They also doubt the project will enable the county to comply with state mandates to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

In July, Caltrans released a 10,000-page draft environmental impact report for public review. Since then Caltrans has held a series of informational workshops to inform the public about the project.

The majority of residents who attended those presentations did not support the expansion.

State Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, said she requested the Nov. 8 informal hearing, held at Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, to allow the agencies involved with the project to speak to the public.

Also on hand were Senate Transportation and Housing Committee Chairman Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, representatives from Caltrans and the San Diego Association of Governments and Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board.

Kehoe said she would include public input from the meeting in her letter responding to the EIR.

Caltrans is proposing to widen 27 miles of I-5 from La Jolla to Oceanside. The project is estimated to cost between $3.3 billion and $4.5 billion depending on the option selected. Many speakers said the money would be better spent on mass transit.

Alternatives include adding up to four managed lanes for carpools, buses and single-occupancy vehicles willing to pay for use. Another option features two additional general purpose lanes. There is also a no-build option, which many residents said was dismissed too quickly.

About four of the approximately two dozen speakers supported the project, saying it would bring much-needed jobs to the area.

That night, Del Mar City Council authorized its 18-page comment letter on the EIR.

The report, the letter states, fails to provide sufficient or effective alternatives or adequately address the project’s main purpose and impacts to the San Dieguito Lagoon and local feeder roads.

City officials also said the no-build alternative is dismissed prematurely and truck traffic was not sufficiently considered.

Read more: Coast News Group - Project to expand I 5 continues to draw community opposition

Residents Protest I-5 Widening Project at State Senate Transportation Meeting in Solana Beach

Courtesy of NBC San Diego
Residents Protest I-5 Widening Project
Economic, environmental, traffic-inducing concerns cited
By GENE CUBBISON
Updated 8:47 PM PST, Mon, Nov 8, 2010

Source: Residents Protest I-5 Widening Project | NBC San Diego

The proposed widening of Interstate 5 through coastal North County ran into another wall of public opposition on Monday from residents of the area.

They voiced numerous objections at a Solana Beach town hall held by the state Senate's Transportation Committee. The public meeting was attended by nearly 300 people.

"I do not believe that pouring more concrete and creating lanes for cars, trucks and buses will solve our problem with congestion and gridlock," said Solana Beach resident Mary Jane Boyd, one of two dozen speakers who took the microphone during the three-hour session. "It certainly will do nothing to improve the quality of the air we breathe."

Much of the testimony centered on health concerns and environmental damage that could occur to wildlife living in six coastal lagoons, 32 acres of wetlands and 74 acres of coastal sage.

Residents Protest I-5 Widening Project

WATCH

Residents Protest I-5 Widening Project

"This project will induce traffic onto the freeway and eliminate the opportunity for inducing traffic into high-speed rail," said Solana Beach resident Lane Sharman,

The CalTrans project would encompass 27 miles from La Jolla to Oceanside and offers four options besides doing nothing -- officials warn that doing nothing would more than double current peak-average travel times along the stretch to upward of 70 minutes.

Those options call for eight or 10 general purpose lanes, four or five in each direction; and four interior, "managed" lanes for high occupancy vehicles, separated either by buffering roadway stripes or by concrete barriers.

The low-end cost estimate of the "8 plus 4" options is $3.4 billion; the high-end estimate for the "10 plus 4" options is $4.5 billion.

The resulting travel time for the "10 plus 4" options ranges from 28 to 37 minutes, and from 37 to 45 minutes for the "8 plus 4" options.

Between 50 and 112 homes, and 10 to 13 businesses, along the route would have to be condemned and demolished for right-of-way. Nearly 2,000 other homes would be impacted by freeway noise, about 1,600 of which would receive noise abatement measures at CalTrans' expense.

The proposal is supported by representatives for general contractors, civil engineers and the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Solana Beach resident Steve Goetsch reminded state senate officials and Caltrans representatives that directors of the San Diego Association of Governments long ago urged Caltrans that no homes should be acquired by eminent domain for future projects.

In an interview following the town hall, Goetsch -- whose neighbors across the street have received notices that their properties are in the path of the right-of-way -- said it's already adversely affecting their lives.

"By law, you must tell anybody that you sell the home to," said Goetsch. "Your home, at that point, is essentially value-less. At that point you can sell; no one's going to buy it."

The project's written public comment period expires Nov. 22.

CalTrans officials said they hope to have a decision on the preferred option by the middle of next year.

It appears "doing nothing" is out of the question, though, as the total number of vehicle trips along that stretch of I-5 is projected to reach 1 million by 2030.

If the decision is ratified by the Federal Highway Administration, the timeline for competion is 2013.

(Correction: The timeline for completion of the final EIR/DIR and NOT construction on the project is projected to be 2013. The start of the actual physical construction of the project would be sometime after that.) bjs

Source: Residents Protest I-5 Widening Project | NBC San Diego

Opinion: Alternatives to the Widening of Interstate 5

A member of Citizens Against Freeway Expansion gives his take on the widening of I-5.

By Steve Goetsch | Email the author | October 31, 2010

Jerome Stocks recently expressed his opinion about the widening of I-5 on Encinitas Patch. In reply, I would like to discuss the first of five alternatives, the one that CalTrans never discusses: the No-Build option.

The proposed expansion of I-5 has exploded in size and cost from the original project approved by SANDAG in 2000, which was projected to cost $516 million, cover 20 miles and last 13 years. The current Caltrans proposal is projected to cost $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion, cover 27 miles and last up to 40 years.

More importantly, SANDAG stated emphatically at that time (as former Solana Beach Mayor Marion Dodson has repeated for 10 years) that there was to be "no taking of private property." When Caltrans Manager Arturo Jacobo was questioned about this contradiction at a June 2010 Solana Beach City Council meeting, he replied that with the present Caltrans proposal it was not possible to avoid taking private parcels.

A Caltrans document (see PDF) lists up to 230 homes or businesses that could be "partially acquired" and up to 36 parcels that could be "fully acquired." Six homeowners in Solana Beach have already received notices that Caltrans wants to acquire their property by eminent domain and as many as five parcels could be condemned in Encinitas.
                         

 http://o3.aolcdn.com/dims-shared/dims3/PATCH/resize/273x203/http://hss-prod.hss.aol.com/hss/storage/patch/35a5f45c408caac706f7c785128d7ebd

Pdfs (1)

Will the proposed expansion of I-5 relieve traffic congestion? The Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A & M University, which Caltrans helps to subsidize, states bluntly in its annual report on Urban Mobility: "You can't build your way out of congestion." After the proposed 40-year expansion program, it is doubtful that traffic would run smoothly for more than five years. Why? Because a freely running freeway attracts traffic from other routes of transportation, thus clogging itself—a major new freeway or freeway expansion attracts more development, which adds more traffic. In plain English, expansion doesn't solve the problem.

What are the alternatives? Mass transit is something the San Diego region has barely explored. Los Angeles, home of more freeways per square mile than any other city in the world—and the nation's worst congestion—is embarking on a crash program to rebuild the light rail system the city foolishly dismantled in the 1950s.  A trolley line is now scheduled to be built from downtown San Diego to the UC San Diego campus and the UTC shopping center. It should be extended all the way to Oceanside.

Unfortunately, trolley lines cannot share the tracks with passenger or freight trains due to federal safety laws. The heavy truck traffic from San Ysidro transiting our county could and should be diverted to freight trains or barges to remove the slow-moving, highly polluting and very dangerous monster trucks from our freeways. Germany has banned such heavy trucks from their highways except at night, which would also lessen the congestion at rush hour.

Finally, some countries are beginning to charge drivers by the total number of miles they drive each day. Some also charge extra for entering heavily congested areas during weekdays, as the Conservative Mayor of London, England, has already done.

The 800-pound gorilla in the room is growth. Why is San Diego County the only California coastal county that does not have a Slow Growth or No Growth law in place? Have we ever had a referendum on the continuation of decades of rapid growth? These  factors should all be considered when discussing the proposed I-5 expansion.

Steve Goetsch is chairman of the Solana Beach Public Safety Commission and the Solana Beach Clean and Green Committee. He works as a medical physicist at the San Diego Gamma Knife Center, assisting neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists in treatment of patients with brain tumors. He also teaches graduate students in medical physics at San Diego State University.