The original goal was to have the eastbound lanes of a relocated Newport Road between Canyon Lake and Sun City open in March.

Now, developers building the Audie Murphy Ranch subdivision at the crossroads of Sun City, Canyon Lake and Quail Valley anticipate those lanes will open in July. The westbound lanes should open by December, said Ken Hauck, director of land development for Woodside Homes, one of two builders.

A four-lane Newport Road will ultimately connect directly into Railroad Canyon Road in Canyon Lake allowing drivers to commute directly from Interstate 15 in Lake Elsinore through Menifee Valley and into Hemet, avoiding the frequent bottlenecks at Goetz Road. Newport Road east of Menifee Road recently was extended into Domenigoni Parkway, which feeds into Hemet.

"It'll be a vital corridor," George Johnson, the county's transportation director, said of the realigned Newport.

Several engineering issues delayed the opening of the project, including:

• flooding during the 2004-05 winter;

• the need to remove water and run it through a sewage plant in Sun City because of high salt content; and

• the discovery of larger-than-anticipated boulders beneath the earth,

Woodside Homes, along with Brookfield Homes, is building the 2,100-home subdivision on about 1,100 acres of the sprawling ranch of the late World War II hero and film star Audie Murphy. Those developers are charged with several area infrastructure improvements, including realigning Newport Road about 3,000 feet south of its current westernmost point at Goetz Road, and widening Goetz south of Quail Valley from two to four lanes.

Today, Newport is a meandering two-lane road between Goetz and Murrieta roads in Sun City. Goetz, which connects Quail Valley to the north with Canyon Lake to the south, awkwardly begins off a sharp turn from Railroad Canyon Road.

All of that should change by year's end. By connecting Newport directly into Railroad Canyon, the traffic crush at Newport and Goetz roads will be eased, county officials said.

"We're getting more and more congestion at that intersection," Johnson said.

At peak traffic hours, it sometimes takes commuters on Goetz in Quail Valley a half-hour to reach the intersection of Newport and Murrieta roads. That intersection is where the new segment of Newport will stretch southwesterly into Railroad Canyon.

More than 23,000 commuters drive on Newport between Goetz and Murrieta roads each day, a county official said. The new Newport is projected to accommodate about 40,000 drivers a day by 2012, and 48,000 trips by 2017.

Although the realignment of Newport Road should ease much of the congestion and hassle for Quail Valley commuters, the opening of the new thoroughfare won't immediately prevent traffic headaches.

To widen Goetz from two to four lanes from Railroad Canyon to Canyon Lake Drive North, that stretch of roadway is expected to be closed sometime this summer through next spring, Hauck said.

In the interim, Quail Valley drivers will have to navigate parts of the existing Newport Road through the ranch to reach the new thoroughfare, Hauck added. The remaining sections of the existing Newport will be renamed Old Newport Road.

The first homes in Audie Murphy Ranch could be open by next spring, a spokesman for the developers said.

- Contact staff writer Brian Eckhouse at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2626, or beckhouse@californian.com.