Senator Kehoe's bill changes again
Steven Goetsch
State Senator Christine Kehoe has once again revised her bill Senate Bill 468:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_468&sess=CUR&house=B&author=kehoe
The bill has been extensively modified and now seems to affect ONLY San Diego County. It limits the expansion
of I-5 to “only” 12 lanes (8 plus 4 with buffer option). My previous analysis of CalTrans documents indicates this
option would Fully Acquire 4 parcels in Carlsbad (plus 14 partial acquisitions), 1 parcel in Encinitas (plus 30
partial), 6 full acquisitions in Solana Beach (plus 4 partial) and 1 Full and 25 partial acquisitions in San Diego.
For the parcel owners involved, that is no small sacrifice.
The bill apparently would permit SANDAG to go ahead and expand immediately (“transit first” requirement has
been removed). It would provide some protection for wetlands and air quality.
Every city from San Diego to Oceanside (and many more entities) studied and commented on the CalTrans Draft EIR
for I-5 expansion last fall. More than 1000 comments were apparently received. I have read dozens of them and none
of them were positive. This expansion plan still stinks like a dead fish.
Please let Senator Kehoe, or your own state senator or assembly member, know what you think. This battle is far
from over.
Steve Goetsch, Citizens Against Freeway Expansion
Solana Beach, CA
This news story was aired on KPBS and is now on their web page:
State Law would Limit The Expansion of I-5
By Tom Fudge
May 18, 2011
SAN DIEGO — Residents of San Diego County’s north coastal areas feared Interstate 5 would balloon to 14 lanes under a freeway expansion plan put forward by local planners and politicians. But a bill by State Senator Chris Kehoe would limit the expansion to two additional carpool lanes in each direction, bringing total lanes to 12.
Photo by Bill Morrow
Above: Interstate 5, north of La Jolla, would not be expanded to 14 lanes under a bill that goes before the State Senate appropriations committee on Monday.
The chairman of SANDAG, the local planning agency, said that part of the bill has the agency’s support.
Kehoe’s bill, SB 468, was introduced as a way to force the expansion of I-5 to wait until mass transit projects in the area were complete. That bill met stiff opposition from SANDAG planners and other people who thought it would unreasonably postpone the freeway's completion.
The “transit-first” elements of the bill have since been eliminated. They’ve been replaced by compromise language intended to protect air quality and the wetland environments close to the coast.
The possibility that the freeway would expand to 14 lanes was by far the most controversial piece of the I-5 plan. The large freeway footprint would have given the I-5, between La Jolla and Oceanside, 10 general-purpose lanes and 4 carpool lanes. The notorious “10+4” plan would have required condemnation of hundreds of properties.
Kehoe said her legislation would prevent that.
“My bill would maintain the smaller footprint of the road,” she said. “It saves almost all of the 400-some homes and properties that would have been taken by the bigger footprint.”
The bill goes before the senate appropriations committee next week. People who have fought the widening of I-5 reacted in a positive but cautious way. Steve Goetsch of Solana Beach, founder of the Committee Against Freeway Expansion, said the bill sounded like a step in the right direction but the final outcome is still be up in the air.
“This has a lot of moving pieces and it’s hard to keep track of,” he said.
Those moving pieces include the California Coastal Commission, which must approve construction permits, and CALTRANS, which has final authority over the freeway expansion.
Jerome Stocks, chairman of the SANDAG board, said the bill’s language that limits I-5 expansion to 12 lanes is not a big deal, because the agency was never determined to build a 14-lane freeway. Stocks added that SANDAG reexamines its Regional Transportation Plan every four years, and things could change.
