Are we there yet?

Construction of the winding road that leads into Laguna Beach is winding down. Caltrans officials expect the realignment and widening of Laguna Canyon Road to be completed by the end of October.

Work has been underway for more than three years, but that is but a smidgen of the time spent planning the project and getting it approved by all the necessary agencies

“When I first took office, I was told that I really should involve myself in something that everybody supported,” 5th District Supervisor Tom Wilson said. “Well, it took seven years to break ground.”

Wilson, who is termed out this year, hopes to see the improvements completed before he leaves office.

“It’s nice to start something and be there to finish it,” said Wilson, who attended the groundbreaking ceremonies Jan. 3, 2003. “I am doing all I can to ensure that. It is a piece of my legacy of improvements and safety projects.”

The project’s goal was to make the road safer and to move it to a less flood-prone location. Plans included moving about 3.9 miles of the road to the west, away from the canyon lakes that routinely flooded the road in heavy rains; adding another lane in each direction and separating north- and southbound traffic by landscaping and elevation; constructing a bicycle path in each direction, bolstered by eight-foot-wide shoulders; water-quality basins, bioswales and wildlife crossings. Utility poles were to be removed in the road segment that runs through Laguna Coast Wilderness Park.

Laguna Canyon Road ? Route 133 ? is a state highway under the jurisdiction of Caltrans. The project runs from the San Diego Freeway (405) in Irvine to the San Joaquin Hills toll road on- and off-ramps within the Laguna Beach city limits.

The project is close to the plans recommended more than 13 years ago in secret meetings of the Laguna Canyon Road Consensus Committee, appointed by the late Supervisor Tom Riley. The meetings were later held to be Brown Act violations, but by the time the court made its decision, the committee had completed its tasks.

“Any changes were for the better,” said Planning Commissioner Norm Grossman, who served on the committee. “The grading is better, less intrusive visually.

“The really interesting thing was the county decision to work with Laguna instead of against it.”

A majority of the committee represented Laguna Beach organizations, including the City Council; the planning commission; Laguna Greenbelt; Village Laguna; Laguna Canyon Conservancy; the Chamber of Commerce; Hospitality Assn. ? now the Visitors Bureau ; the open space committee (then a commission); and the parking, traffic and circulation committee. Representatives of Caltrans, the county, the city of Irvine, Leisure World and the Irvine Co. also served on the committee.

The committee could only reach consensus by recommending that Caltrans either move the road out of the lake area or raise it above the lakes, the only proposal City Council representatives Bob Gentry and Lida Lenney would accept. They opposed any intrusion into the environmentally sensitive open space purchased by the city’s voters to protect the canyon from any development.

“Moving the road from the lakes did result in a taking of a small amount of coastal sage scrub,” Grossman said.

A committee report was submitted in January 1993 and the committee was disbanded.

After that, the Laguna Canyon Road Oversight Committee was formed. It included two council members, five Laguna Beach residents and representatives of Caltrans and the county. In the beginning the committee met regularly, but as work on the road moved along, the meetings became sporadic.

“But we haven’t met for awhile,” said Jack Camp, an oversight committee member from the beginning.

Councilwomen Cheryl Kinsman and Jane Egly are the council’s representatives.

“The nice thing about the project is that it was done right, and the county agreed to do it in a sensitive way that was a real coup for Laguna Beach environmentalists,” said Kinsman, who was also a speaker at the groundbreaking ceremony in 2003.

The completed road will cost about $33 million, $17 million funded by Caltrans and the rest by the county, Caltrans spokeswoman Diane Eggl said.

Caltrans, the Orange County Transportation Authority, the county’s Public Facilities & Resources and Planning and Development Services departments, the cities of Irvine and Laguna Beach and the Irvine Co. collaborated on the project.

One unexpected benefit of the project was the discovery of the oldest skeleton in Orange County, reported in the September 2003 edition of the California Transportation Journal.

A black dolphin landed in the canyon about 10 million years ago. Discovery of the skeleton did not stop road construction. A ripper removed the block of sandstone in which Willie had rested. The skeleton was trucked to a laboratory for study by paleontologists at LSA and Associates, the firm that provided environmental support for the road improvements.

The psuedorca crassidens ? false orca ? may have been caught in an underwater landslide or have beached itself in what is considered to be a highly sensitive environmental area, still home to wildlife. cpt.26-canyonroad-1-CPhotoInfoTD1RA72U20060526izsm0bncDON LEACH / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)A wheel-loader vehicle moves along a graded hillside on Laguna Canyon Road near the freeway where work continues.cpt.26-canyonroad-2-CPhotoInfoTD1RA73020060526izsm0xncDON LEACH / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)A wheel-loader vehicle moves along Laguna Canyon Road as the widening project continues.