New Lane, Barriers Proposed for California 163 : Plans for Highway Work in Park Roil Council

Caltrans plans to build two traffic barriers in the tree-lined median along California 163 in Balboa Park and expand the ramp from the state highway to Interstate 5 by adding another lane.

By doing so, they will uproot some grass, a “handful” of trees and a great deal of anger at San Diego City Hall.

The barriers would begin just south of the Laurel Street overpass and run to near the Robinson Avenue overpass, about 8 feet from the inside lanes, “so if someone ran off the road, he’d still have an inside shoulder area before he hit the guardrail,” said Jack Grasberger, chief deputy district director of the California Department of Transportation.

Only a few trees will be affected, he said, and those that have to be cut down will be replaced.

Deadly Accidents

The project, which will cost $911,000, is expected to be finished by the end of the fiscal year ending in 1991. The barriers will be “aesthetically pleasing” and are necessary because of an increasing number of fatal accidents in the area, Grasberger said.

“There have been all kinds of accidents but there’s been a number of fatalities and multiple fatalities,” he said. “People tend to drive off the pavement, and if you have trees, people tend to run into them.”

No Statistical Backup

Grasberger could not provide accident statistics for the area but said 90,000 cars use California 163 through the park every day.

A $600,000 project to add a 1,000- to 1,500-foot-long section to the ramp at Interstate 5 and Park Boulevard would allow another lane of cars to use the off-ramp and is necessary because of traffic problems, Grasberger said.

The off-ramp expansion is also slated for fiscal 1991 but will probably take longer to complete, he said.

Both proposals met with loud protest Wednesday at City Hall.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who was home with the flu, told spokesman Paul Downey that she would not stand for having a single tree cut down in the park. “We need more trees and less cement,” Downey said, adding that it was the first the mayor had heard of the proposal.

Deputy Mayor Judy McCarty called Caltrans’ plans “outrageous and an assault on one of San Diego’s most cherished public areas.” She dismissed the department’s claims that the addition of a lane would ease congestion.

‘A Price We Pay’

“It’s not that important. Sure, it gets crowded at rush hour, but that’s a price we pay for driving through the park,” McCarty said.

McCarty said she first heard about the proposals from a Caltrans State Transportation Improvement Program report she received two weeks ago. She said she has asked City Manager John Lockwood to prepare by Feb. 15 a detailed report on the accidents along the Balboa Park stretch of California 163.

City Councilman Bob Filner, whose district includes Balboa Park, also expressed disappointment and said he is not yet convinced that the barriers are necessary.

“We talked to Caltrans officials months and months ago . . . we made it clear to them, anything they did had to be sensitive to the decade-long fight of keeping that parkway in tune with the environment,” he said. “I’m disappointed they haven’t done that.”

Grasberger said his department has no plans to widen the highway and assured that the barriers will be made of “stone or something that looks good in there, something you’d expect to find in the park . . . possibly even something that would look like redwood.”

A Caltrans report on the two proposals will be ready by June, and Grasberger said Caltrans officials plan further discussion with the city.

A memo from Lockwood to McCarty said the Caltrans staff had had preliminary discussions with members of the city Engineering and Development Department and Planning Department about the roadwork but had not presented any specific plans.

“Neither project puts any additional through lanes through the park. It’s a four-lane freeway, and it will still be a four-lane freeway,” Grasberger said. “I’ve been here 18 years, and before I came here there was a movement underfoot to widen (163). That was so controversial we backed off more than 20 years ago and never came back.”