SANDAG RTP amended for eight-lane SR 241

The San Diego Association of Governments amended its 2030 Regional Transportation Plan to change State Route 241 to an eight-lane tollway.

The 14-0 vote January 28, with five jurisdictions absent when the vote occurred, also amends the final environmental impact report for the RTP, although the environmental impact report for the specific project is separate from the programmatic EIR. The Orange County portion of State Route 241 is under the jurisdiction of the Southern California Association of Government’s plan.

“We just need to make sure that SANDAG’s RTP was consistent with SCAG’s RTP,” said Heather Werdick, a transportation planner for SANDAG.

The Transportation Corridor Agencies has proposed the construction of a limited access toll road from the existing State Route 241 in Orange County to Interstate 5 in San Diego County. While most of the 16-mile proposed Foothill Transportation Corridor South is located within Orange County, in three of the ten proposed alternatives the San Diego County segment will have an approximate length of five miles. SR 241 would run through a portion of Camp Pendleton before ending at Interstate 5.

SANDAG’s 1996 RTP identified SR 241 as an eight-lane facility with six freeway toll lanes and two high-occupancy vehicle lanes. SANDAG’s current RTP identifies the project as a six-lane facility with four toll lanes and two HOV lanes. The Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) has requested that SANDAG amend its 2030 RTP to designate the highway as an eight-lane toll facility.

State Route 241 will be phased; the first four lanes are expected to be built by 2007 at a cost of $223 million for the San Diego County portion while the expansion to eight lanes at an additional San Diego segment cost of $184 million is expected to be complete by 2015. The cost of the highway will be fully borne by TCA and thus the revenue changes in the RTP will not impact any other San Diego area project.

The amendment to the RTP was released for a 30-day public comment period December 10, and no comments were received. Although the amended programmatic EIR does not indicate a substantial increase in the severity of impacts, San Diego’s Chuck Lungerhausen cautioned that the project itself would have impacts.

“It is rather interesting how adding two lanes to a toll road has no significant change to an environmental impact report,” Lungerhausen told the SANDAG board. “The traffic is going to be coming here. It’s got to have some kind of impact.”

The EIR for the actual project is being handled by TCA, which has received approximately 6,000 comments on its draft document. TCA is currently in the process of reviewing the comments.

The programmatic EIR for the 2030 RTP identifies the impacts of the entire program and not specific facilities or corridors. “We don’t quantify for each individual corridor,” explained Rob Rundle, who handles environmental documentation for SANDAG.

“An addendum to a programmatic EIR is appropriate and adequate,” Werdick noted.

TCA has not yet identified a preferred alternative for State Route 241.