After defeat, O.C. tollway officials consider new route
The California Coastal Commission rejected plans for an extension of the Foothill South highway through San Onofre State Beach.
A day after their stinging defeat before the California Coastal Commission, Orange County toll road officials are considering a new route for a six-lane highway.
After 12 hours of public testimony and debate Wednesday, commissioners decided by an 8-2 vote that extending the Foothill South tollway through San Onofre State Beach would violate environmental laws designed to regulate development along 1,100 miles of California coastline.
"The news was disappointing," said Lance MacLean, chairman of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which has spent years and tens of millions of dollars planning the Foothill South. "At the board's next meeting, we will brainstorm our options, which may include moving the route" of the highway.
Meanwhile, tollway opponents, heartened by the commission's decision, said the vote preserves the integrity of the California Coastal Act and sends a signal to private and public interests with plans underway to take state parkland for uses other than those originally intended.
"We absolutely think this is an important deterrent," said Elizabeth Goldstein, executive director of the State Parks Foundation, a toll road opponent. The decision "is a signal to those who want to use parkland for [something] which it is not intended and that they will face a hard road. These are not paths of least resistance."
The State Parks Foundation estimated last spring that there were 110 active or proposed development plans submitted by private and public interests that would encroach on 72 state parks. The plans include small takings of parkland by private property owners as well as for casinos, dairies, desalination plants, utility lines, streets and the now-rejected toll road.
Estimated to cost at least $875 million, the tollway would have run 16 miles from Oso Parkway in Rancho Santa Margarita to Interstate 5 at Basilone Road, south of San Clemente. It would have coursed through the northern half of San Onofre and passed over the Trestles marine nature preserve. About 320 of the park's 2,100 acres would have been taken for the road.
San Onofre's northern part contains endangered species, an unspoiled stretch of San Mateo Creek, the 161-space San Mateo Campground, and archaeological sites, such as the Juaneno Indian village of Panhe. The nearby beach is known for two famous surf spots, Trestles and Old Man's.
