DANA POINT, SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Need for Alipaz Street Challenged

San Juan City Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer calls Alipaz Street “the road to nowhere.”

The four-lane highway runs along the west side of San Juan Creek in San Juan Capistrano for about a mile and then stops abruptly. Long visualized by county transportation planners as a main thoroughfare from Dana Point almost to Mission Viejo, the roadway has been half-finished for years.

Now, the Dana Point City Council has surprised neighboring city officials by suggesting that the street remain that way, at least at the southern terminus.

Last week, Councilman Mike Eggers proposed abandoning the extension because it would cause more traffic problems than it would solve.

“It’s a planner’s dream that is no longer feasible,” Eggers said. “It would become a major speedway through there, which is exactly what we don’t want.”

With four-lane Del Obispo Street soon to be supported by the extension of Stonehill Drive over San Juan Creek, more of Alipaz “would no longer be needed,” Eggers contends.

Eggers’ suggestion, however, caught most San Juan Capistrano officials off guard. Some called it premature.

“I don’t understand what it’s all about,” City Councilman Lawrence F. Buchheim said. “We’ve had an arterial highway plan in this area for 20, 30 or 40 years with a right of way already established. I’m surprised anybody would want to eliminate any roadway on it now.”

City officials in San Juan Capistrano have been grappling with the problem of redirecting traffic from their downtown and have long believed Alipaz to be a potential solution.

“People have to get through this valley one way or another,” Buchheim said.

The San Juan Capistrano city staff has been busy studying what to do with the northern terminus of Alipaz. The largest hurdle at that end has been where the roadway should cross Trabuco Creek and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway tracks, and how to pay the estimated $24-million cost of such a bridge, Buchheim said.

Hausdorfer, however, likes Eggers’ idea. Since the northern end of Alipaz may not be completed any time soon, Hausdorfer said perhaps it would be best to leave the roadway as it is.

“I’ve talked to Mike about it and I’m generally supportive,” Hausdorfer said.

The officials must still persuade county planners, who must approve any tampering with their arterial highway maps. Under Eggers’ direction, the Dana Point city staff will soon begin negotiations to win county approval for his proposal.