Vista Sorrento Parkway

by Councilman Scott Peters
December 2001

I have served this year as a member of Mayor Murphy's Freeway Congestion Strike Team, designed to find ways in which we can accelerate freeway construction and road improvement projects, implement better management of rush hour traffic, and promote the use of car pooling, telecommuting, and staggered work hours. This is a particularly important role for me given the preeminence of freeway and neighborhood traffic as issues in District 1.

Although the traffic problems along the Highway 5 corridor and throughout the northern portion of the city remain daunting, we have begun to address many of these problems and concerns and have been encouraged by our success. Recently, we were able to accelerate construction and completion of a crucial north-south link that will help relieve traffic congestion in the Sorrento Valley and Torrey Hills area, Vista Sorrento Parkway.

Under the terms of its development agreements in Torrey Hills, Westbrook Development (formerly Terrabrook) is required to complete Vista Sorrento Parkway, connecting Carmel Mountain Road with Mira Mesa Boulevard, running east of I-5. Westbrook has been ready to go, but has been forced to wait for the California State Department of Transportation ("Caltrans") to move approximately 510,000 cubic yards of soil that Caltrans will ultimately use in connection with widening at the 5/805 merge. Because Caltrans had no place for the dirt until the widening project was further along, the project was not scheduled to be completed until 2005.

Fortunately, working with Caltrans, City staff, Westbrook, and the Freeway Congestion Strike Team's Sorrento Valley Traffic Subcommittee, which is made up of local business leaders, we have been able to fashion an agreement that will have the road built by fall of next year, three years earlier than originally anticipated. According to the agreement, the City will compensate Westbrook for the majority of costs to remove the dirt, which was originally the responsibility of Caltrans. In turn, Caltrans has agreed to reduce the City's financial obligation toward the I-5/I-805 construction project by the amount the City is reimbursing Westbrook for removal of the dirt. It is so important that we continue to be proactive in tackling all transportation projects. I am pleased that this vital infrastructure project will be completed ahead of schedule to give this area the much needed traffic relief it has been desperately seeking.

In the coming months, the community and the region will have to come to grips with a looming and still unresolved crisis -- the SR 56 westbound to northbound I-5 connectors. With the opening of the freeway set for mid 2004, the Carmel Valley and Torrey Pines communities are in line to be deluged with traffic. At the very First Freeway Congestion Strike Team meeting I asked that we focus on this important issue. It is vital to me and to the community that the Strike Team and the entire council understand the impacts of SR 56 traffic spilling onto local streets, primarily due to the failure to simultaneously build direct freeway connections between SR 56 westbound and I-5 northbound, and between I-5 southbound and SR 56 eastbound. I felt that the solution identified in the Caltrans Project Study Report, two massive flyovers, were eyesores and would also be too expensive to build.

Caltrans, City staff, and community members have gone back to work together on two very important issues. First, they will determine how traffic congestion impacts can be minimized prior to and during construction of the two connectors. Second, but no less important, is completing a value engineering analysis to determine whether a less expensive, alternative connector design can be identified. I will be sure the community is well informed about the options that are open to us.

I am proud of the accomplishments our Freeway Congestion Strike Team has achieved in a relatively short period of time. Smart solutions such as the Vista Sorrento Parkway agreement between Caltrans and the developer will enable us to manage the projected growth in San Diego and will bring us closer to our goal of relieving our traffic-congested freeways and streets.