Citizens for Route 56 Meeting : Civic Leaders Hear Pitch for North County Freeway

An imposing array of political and business leaders, about 100 in all, gathered for an invitation-only session aimed at rallying local groups for another attempt to build an east-west freeway across northern San Diego County.

San Diego acting Mayor Ed Struiksma, who chaired the meeting with Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, introduced in absentia the steering committee for Citizens for State Route 56, which is composed of three local state senators, three state Assembly members, two county supervisors and two other San Diego City Council members.

The new organization is designed to “bring all needed pressure to bear” on state officials to speed construction of the freeway, which would link Interstate 5 at Del Mar with Interstate 15 south of Rancho Bernardo.

Without the freeway, which Struiksma warned is unlikely to be started by the end of the century, local east-west roads--principally Mira Mesa Boulevard, Miramar Road and California 78--are being forced to carry an overload of traffic that California 56 should bear.

Bill Tuomi, an analyst for the San Diego Assn. of Governments, noted that the freeway--planned to begin at Carmel Valley Road and intersect I-15 between Poway and Carmel Mountain roads--was placed on state highway planning maps 21 years ago this month but that not one yard of concrete has been laid. He said the freeway, which would run through the huge planned communities of North City West and Rancho Penasquitos, is not shown on the state’s five-year construction plans and is listed as a possible project in the long-range 20-year plans for road building.

Tuomi said that traffic is expected to increase 64% by 2005 and that California 56, if built, is expected to carry 50,000 to 80,000 cars daily by then. He estimated that the nine-mile stretch between I-5 and I-15 would cost between $50 million and $65 million to build.

Struiksma warned that both state and federal highway funds are drying up, making the task of speeding construction of the freeway more difficult. In order to build the freeway at an earlier date, he said, local support and successful passage of a countywide ballot proposal to raise gasoline sales taxes by a cent for transportation projects are needed.

Several efforts by North County groups to have California 56 removed from state highway system maps during the past two decades have been defeated, Tuomi said.

Developers in North City West and Rancho Penasquitos have signed agreements to build a smaller road along the route and have reserved right-of-way for the freeway path, Tuomi said, but a full-width freeway will be needed within the next 15 years. Those two large developments, plus several others under way along the I-15 corridor, will double the area population in the next two decades, he said.

Tom Hawthorne of Escondido, a member of the state Transportation Commission, which allots state and federal funds for highway projects, commented after Friday’s meeting that an aggressive local support group behind the freeway could advance the construction date for California 56 by as much as five or six years.

Struiksma’s aides distributed bumper stickers to participants, and Struiksma advised the participants to put the green decals carrying a “Citizens for State Route 56” slogan and a thunderbolt logo on the rear windows of their autos so that motorists behind them during freeway traffic jams could ponder the need for an east-west freeway in the northern portion of San Diego County.