Foothill Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency board members Thursday approved an agreement to settle five lawsuits from environmental groups aiming to block an extension of the 241 Toll Road to relieve congestion on the San Diego (5) Freeway in south Orange County.
The settlement ends 15 years of legal battles with environmental groups and the Attorney General’s Office and also allows the agency to pursue a variety of solutions to relieve traffic congestion in the southern part of the county while also establishing a $28 million fund to preserve open space.
Agency officials say they may still consider the connection between the 241 and the 5, but now they will do so in partnership with the environmental organizations, who will make sure open space areas such as the San Onofre State Beach and the Trestles, long a popular surfer destination, will not be affected.
Since April 2014, TCA’s Chief Executive Michael Kraman has been working with the dozen or so environmental groups that have banded together to block any extension of the toll road.
“As those discussions progressed, we were able to, about a few months ago, get to a point where we actually moved into more formal settlement discussions,” Kraman said.
“We’re really proud of the process we’ve gone through, the discussions we’ve had, which have been very genuine with environmental groups,” he said.
The agency announced in April 2014 it scrapped federal environmental reviews of the extension to San Diego County because they had languished for about a decade.
At that time, officials began focusing on a 5 1/2-mile extension, that still is an option.
The Tesoro Extension Project was meant to extend the toll road to Oso Parkway near Coto de Caza to Cow Camp Road close to San Juan Capistrano, but it ran into another obstacle last year, when a required permit was rejected by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Plans to further extend the toll road another 11 miles to connect it with the San Diego (5) Freeway have drawn the ire of environmental groups.
Environmental organizations had concerns that the traffic plans would damage San Onofre State Beach, the Richard and Donna O’Neill Conservancy and other open space in the area.
The agreement also calls for a plan to minimize the effect of any construction on any toll road project and guarantee public access to San Onofre State Beach during construction.
“Our coalition has worked diligently for more than a decade to save the park and the surrounding watershed,” Surfrider Foundation spokeswoman Stefanie Sekich-Quinn said. “This settlement agreement permanently protects these invaluable cultural, recreational and ecological resources that are treasured by the public.”
Lucy Dunn, president and CEO of the Orange County Business Council, praised the deal.
“The settlement agreement … is a victory for Orange County businesses, residents and anyone who commutes through southern Orange County,” Dunn said. “The agreement preserves San Onofre State Beach while providing the TCA with the flexibility it needs to improve mobility along the I-5 corridor.”
Agency board member Ed Sachs said, “the framework set forth today will allow our agency to move forward with possible solutions in partnership with the environmental community.”
—City News Service