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Valley Center Planning Group Proposes Alternative to Road Widening

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 May 2006, 12:03 CDT

By Quinn Eastman, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

May 7--VALLEY CENTER ---- Traffic through the middle of Valley Center is likely to double in the next decade, according to county estimates, and that prospect has community planners looking for ways to relieve the pressure.

Last week, the Valley Center Community Planning Group completed months of work with county officials on a proposed web of roads designed to make it easier to get around the growing rural community.

Their strategy was to limit the need to widen existing roads by finding alternative routes that could drain local traffic from the main routes.

Could that strategy work? The answer appears to be yes ---- and no.

Computer simulations by county planners show that the mix of new and wider roads preferred by the planning group could remove thousands of cars and trucks daily from Valley Center Road.

However, that's not enough to keep some stretches ---- such as one between Lilac and Cole Grade roads ---- from having the worst "level of service," or a congestion rating of F.

That stretch is already a predictable trouble spot, said Oliver Smith, a planning group member. He usually leaves at 6:30 a.m. from near Lake Wohlford Road to get to his workplace, a medical device company in Carlsbad, at around 7:15 or 7:30 a.m.

"I know that if I leave 15 minutes later, I'll get there half an hour later," Smith said last week. "It'll be backed up for a mile around Lilac Road."

Many unincorporated communities in San Diego County are dealing with similar issues now because county planners are in the middle of their General Plan 2020 update that will map where growth can occur.

The road network recommendations made by local planning groups follow extensive community debate over zoning for homes and businesses in 2004 and 2005. The Board of Supervisors could wrap up the process next year, county officials have said.

In Valley Center's proposed plans, residents can expect improvements to commercial areas, including new grocery stores and other shops, and hundreds of new homes in two villages, or "nodes," along Valley Center Road in the next decade.

To go along with that growth, two-lane Valley Center Road is in the middle of being widened to four lanes through the middle of town, and county public works officials are beginning to design a widened Cole Grade Road as well.

With that new construction, but without other new or widened roads, county simulations predict that a completed four-lane Valley Center Road in 2020 could see 52,000 vehicles a day in some spots, up from about 21,000 in 2004.

Valley Center's planning group kept in mind four principles while working on its preferred road network, its chairman, Keith Simpson, said last week.

Remembering the 2003 Paradise fire, they wanted to improve emergency access to remote areas, but also preserve the tree-lined character of the area's rural roads, he said.

Tourist traffic and casino customers should be kept on main roads, while more connections to Interstate 15 would help commuters, he said.

As a result, the planning group asked that county planners study a northern route to I-15 from the Cole Grade Road area to West Lilac Road. They asked the county to follow through on long-standing plans to join Mirar de Valle and Mountain Meadow roads just to the north of Daley Ranch, the city of Escondido's 3,000-acre habitat preserve.

In addition, to ease traffic jams, they proposed extensions of such routes as Vesper, Mac Tan and Miller roads.

Put together, the county's traffic simulations show that the planning group's map could draw 8,000 cars and trucks a day from Valley Center Road and also unclog Cole Grade Road, frequently used by parents of middle school and high school students.

But that wasn't enough to take Valley Center Road off the "failing road" list with 44,000 vehicles a day between Cole Grade and Lilac in 2020.

"There are some spots on Valley Center Road where there are just no alternative routes," said Andy Washburn, chairman of the planning group's traffic subcommittee. "Planners sometimes pencil in a route without realizing there's a huge canyon in the way."

Planning officials cautioned that the road networks are still works in progress.

The county may propose to widen roads or add roads on top of the plans recommended by local planning groups, said Ivan Holler, deputy director of planning and land use, who is overseeing the general plan update.

"We also could decide to accept a lower level of service in certain discreet areas," he said.

Last week, the planning group voted to accept four lane roads to some parts of its planned web ---- such as Cole Grade from the county library to Valley Center High School. It previously had proposed the road be only two lanes.

But alarmed by the predictions for Valley Center Road, the planning group asked county planners to study reducing the number of future homes in the "village" areas along Valley Center Road, which Holler said was possible but unlikely.

"That's the option we get to last," he said. "I'm not sure that it will be necessary in Valley Center."

Two obstacles stand in the way of the proposed fixes: neighbors and a lack of money.

For example, the possibility of Valley Center drivers coming through the quiet Hidden Meadows area north of Escondido has bothered some in that affluent community.

The Hidden Meadows Community Sponsor Group delayed voting on the Mirar de Valle-Mountain Meadow extension at its road network planning meeting last week, said Doug Alter, the group's vice chairman.

Some Hidden Meadows residents have said they are open to the idea because their children attend Valley Center schools and sports activities, but others are wary.

"It'll bring more traffic through this area, but it won't solve their problem," Alter said. "It'll only frustrate people because it's difficult to get on I-15 now."

He said that the proposed 2,700-home Stonegate development west of I-15 and south of Highway 76, where Mountain Meadow becomes Deer Springs Road, could eventually bring thousands of cars from the west.

Within Valley Center, months of public meetings may have helped planners eliminate some ideas for roads that could make neighbors squeal, but not all of them.

"For every alternative, somebody comes up and says, 'Over my dead body,"" said Smith. "They moved to Valley Center because they wanted a house at the end of a dead-end private road."

A persistent disagreement between county planning staff and the planning group is whether to extend Fruitvale Road near Cole Grade, close to the future site of Valley Center Community Church, he said.

Valley Center planning group member Larry Glavinic last week called some of the proposed routes a "pipe dream," pointing out that the county previously has been limited by a lack of money in its local road-building.

"Unless a developer does it directly, it won't get done," Glavinic predicted.

Nearby American Indian casinos that have contributed millions for the widening of Valley Center Road may be less likely to pay for road construction intended strictly for local traffic, he said.

The northern route to I-15 may get a boost when the nearby Lilac Ranch development ---- now stalled ---- is built, he said.

Last year, the Board of Supervisors approved a fee on developments to gather money for future road improvements, but money has only been rolling in for a year. Business groups have protested that the fee is too high.

Deputy planning director Holler said that for a road project to get top priority, the Board of Supervisors needs to designate it a "Capital Improvement Project" with the Department of Public Works.

After approving the general plan, the Board could put together a more informed list of those projects, knowing which roads will be necessary for housing developments being built soon, he said.

"This is where it gets exciting," he said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

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Source: North County Times

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