Cannon Road controversy to resurface

By: BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer | Saturday, September 17, 2005 11:18 PM PDT ∞

CARLSBAD ----- Commuters, conservationists, city officials and Oceanside residents who live on Carlsbad's borders will soon revisit an issue that has long divided them.

Within the next few months, Carlsbad's City Council is expected to consider paying for a new environmental study that looks at whether to extend Cannon Road to the city limits. The council's funding decision could potentially kick-start a controversial road construction proposal that has been dormant for several years.

Carlsbad's portion of Cannon Road ends just west of a fruit stand a block away from El Camino Real. A mile to the east is the beginning of Oceanside's section of Cannon Road. Carlsbad officials want to connect those two segments with a 1-mile link, making it possible to drive from eastern Oceanside to Interstate 5 without using Highway 78.

Constructing the road may not happen in his lifetime, but "somewhere along the line, they're going to have to have that access," the city's longtime mayor, Bud Lewis, declared this month as he discussed the project. He added that the connection has long been a part of the city's general traffic circulation plan.

Others, including local environmentalists, feel the city shouldn't go any farther down this path.

"There are few things more damaging to sensitive habitat than putting a four-lane, divided highway through the center of it," Diane Nygaard of the nonprofit organization Preserve Calavera told the council last month.

Divided on the issue

In order to put the road in, the city will need to carve through land where endangered bird and plant species live. In addition to drawing fierce opposition from environmental groups, the project also has faced opposition from the state Department of Fish and Game, which owns a 300-acre habitat reserve in the area. The path of the proposed road is likely to cut right across the reserve, both city and state officials said.

"As a resource agency, we have concerns over the impact to the remaining coastal sage scrub and the open space," said Kim McKee, an associate wildlife biologist who manages state ecological reserves in the region. "Knowing that there is current and proposed (housing) development all round this area, adding a road ---- basically a high-speed highway ---- is problematic to the wildlife there."

The city's proposal has been supported by the New Venture Christian Fellowship ---- a 3,500-member church on an Oceanside hilltop just east of the end of Cannon Road. About 20 percent of its members are Carlsbad residents, Senior Pastor Shawn Mitchell said.

"It would be very, very helpful," he said, adding that Carlsbad church members could shave eight minutes off their commute times.

Residents of the 1,600-home Ocean Hills Country Club community across the street are divided. They want the road extended, but they are concerned about how it will be designed, said Bob Edmondson, chairman of the community's government affairs committee.

"We don't want to denigrate what we have," he said. "We want to maintain property values and quality of life."

Reaching a decision

The country club residents fought Carlsbad's plans several years ago when the city was considering building the new road bed much higher than residents wanted. Under those plans, Cannon Road would have been 50 feet higher than its Oceanside end is now.

"We objected to that very strongly," Edmondson said. "If it is opened, we want it built at the grade (the dead end) is now ... (otherwise) the noise and the traffic would basically be put in our back yards."

City officials said last week that the new environmental report will look at a variety of roadway designs. They initially placed an environmental report funding request on the council's Aug. 9 agenda, but pulled it to conduct more research.

"We're in the process of doing some additional traffic analysis to support the need for the project," said Glenn Pruim, deputy public works director.

This is the second environmental report on Cannon Road proposals in five years. The first report was produced in advance of the most recent Cannon Road construction ---- the stretch between El Camino Real and College Boulevard that opened last year.

The final version of the earlier report dropped the proposed 1-mile stretch to the city limits known as Cannon Reach 4. It was removed from the report after environmental groups and nearby homeowners threatened to sue the city.

The new report will take at least a year to produce, Pruim said, adding that it would be years before any construction could begin.

Recent estimates put the cost at roughly $30 million. The question now will be how much traffic congestion could be reduced on roadways ranging from Palomar Airport Road to Interstate 5, and whether the traffic benefits are worth the cost, Pruim said.

"We just want to qualify the benefits and then quantify the costs," he said, calling the roadway extension a "difficult decision."

Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.

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