Camino Del Sur Interchange

by Scott Peters
April 2003

Last Saturday over 700 residents from the I-15 Corridor joined me, Mayor Murphy and Councilman Brian Maienschein to walk, bike ride and enjoy the ceremonial opening of the Camino Del Sur interchange and the new section of the SR56 from Black Mountain Road to Camino Del Sur. The ceremony marked the completion of an important project for all those who live along the I-15 corridor, but especially those living in Rancho Penasquitos. Through a creative public / private partnership among the City, County, Caltrans and the development community, we were able to bring a much needed traffic improvement to the community 3 years ahead of schedule. I believe that this type of partnership will serve as a model throughout San Diego County, and it demonstrates that by working together we can get things done if we are dedicated to solving problems. The opening of this section of SR56 has been my top priority in Rancho Penasquitos and I am pleased that we were able to get this done for the community.

I would like to thank the Rancho Penasquitos community for their incredible patience and help during the construction of this project. Since the opening of the loop road to the west, Black Mountain Road has seen a tremendous increase in traffic that put a strain on the Rancho Penasquitos community. The volume and speed of traffic posed a threat to safety and quality of life. We convened a traffic forum shortly after I was elected to hear suggestions from residents about what we could do. We did as much as we could on Black Mountain Road itself, including installing fluorescent school signs, Bott′s dots, a new light at Maler, a red curb at Defreitas, and no turn on red signs at Adolphia and at Oviedo. I joined the community at a "slow down around town" rally to remind drivers to slow down, and we got new speed equipment for the Police Department to keep that reminder going. But we′ve always known that the best thing we could do for Black Mountain Road would be to move traffic onto a completed Camino del Sur (formerly Camino Ruiz). That′s why we spent so much effort to accelerate its completion from 2006, the planned date.

The opening of this interchange will have very real and positive impacts on the quality of life in PQ. The new interchange is projected to take as much as 50% of the traffic off of Black Mountain Road. Construction trucking on Black Mountain Road will be reduced, creating a safer atmosphere for children crossing the street to attend Sunset Hills Elementary and Black Mountain Middle School. Students and parents on their way to Westview High School will now be able to quickly access the campus without having to crawl down Black Mountain Road in the morning. And residents in Torrey Highlands will also be able to make it home and get to work more quickly cutting out the extra 15 minutes spent on Black Mountain Road.

The Rancho Penasquitos community and my office owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mayor Murphy and the Freeway Congestion Strike Team (on which I and Councilmember Maienschein both serve) for allowing us to pursue this intersection, because we had to do it without delaying the completion of the highway. We are also grateful to Caltrans and the local developers for recognizing the opportunity and helping to make it happen.

As we noted on Saturday the interchange will actually be open to traffic on Friday the 11th, but it was great to see people from ages 2 to 62 creating bicycle traffic on the new road this weekend. We ask for one more week of patience while the freeway gets its final checks from Caltrans, and I look forward to seeing all of you at the ceremony opening the entire stretch of SR56 in July of 2004.