Highway 76 work to start sooner than expected

By: LORELL FLEMING - Staff Writer | Saturday, April 9, 2005 12:08 AM PDT ∞

FALLBROOK ---- The timetable for long-awaited improvements to Highway 76 is accelerating, officials said Friday.

At a community meeting Friday, Pedro Orso-Delgado, chief of the California Department of Transportation, gave a timeline for the highway widening projects that shows it getting underway about a year earlier than the previously estimated start date of 2008.

Orso-Delgado was part of a five-member panel at Friday's meeting that included county Supervisor Bill Horn, Congressman Darrell Issa, and Therese O'Rourke, a field supervisor with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Also on the panel was Mickey Cafagna, chairman of the board of the San Diego Association of Governments.

The entire panel said that Highway 76 improvement has been a priority, and will remain at the top of their list.

About 140 people turned out for the meeting at Zion Lutheran Church, 1405 E. Fallbrook St. The event was organized by Fixthe76now, a North County-based, grass-roots group lobbying for early completion of the estimated $110 million road project.

The group's founder, Margie Hopkins, said Friday that she is pleased with what Fixthe76now has accomplished so far.

"We got two big things out of this," said Hopkins, a Fallbrook resident. "Instead of starting the road sometime around 2011, they are talking now about finishing the road around that time. And, I think the politicians and the agencies see that they have to talk to each other ... and us."

Work to widen the 76, from Melrose Drive in Oceanside to South Mission Road in Bonsall, is now slated to begin in mid-2007 and wrap up around the fall of 2009, officials said. Widening a second stretch of the highway ---- from South Mission Road to Interstate 15 ---- is scheduled to start in mid-2008 and be finished sometime toward the end of 2011.

The project will be funded by revenue generated by the extension of a transportation tax approved by voters in the November election. Money raised from the original TransNet tax is already spoken for until 2008, when the extension will kick in. But Orso-Delgado said funds for the Highway 76 project can be used by borrowing ahead.

Meanwhile, the widening of the intersection of Highway 76 and Olive Hill Road ---- which started several months ago ---- is expected to be done by August 2005.

The push for the road work has grown stronger in recent years, as gridlock has worsened and traffic deaths on the busy highway have surged.

In 2004, more deaths resulted from traffic collisions on Highway 76 than on any major road in North County, according to the California Highway Patrol. Eight unrelated crashes on the busy, curvy road led to the deaths of 16 people that year.

After each panelist gave a brief presentation Friday, audience members asked questions, including a handwritten query submitted to the panel: What can citizens do to help with the effort to get the project done?

"Keeping our feet to the fire," Cafagna replied. "Keeping this in the news, and keeping us focused. You need to continue what you're already doing."

Contact staff writer Lorell Fleming at (760) 731-5798 or lfleming@nctimes.com.

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