CARLSBAD -- The city of Carlsbad has filed suit against the Carlsbad Unified School District over traffic issues related to plans for a new high school.

Consider it a somewhat friendly lawsuit -- the district and city officials even issued a joint press release when the paperwork was filed Friday in Vista's Superior Court.

The two agencies have been in negotiations for months over plans to put a high school on a 57-acre parcel near the intersection of Cannon Road and College Boulevard. The school, which would serve some 1,500 students, is proposed to open in 2012.

"We're trying to reach a resolution on the traffic issues and I'm confident that we're going to do that, but these things are complicated and they take a little time," Assistant City Attorney Jane Mobaldi said as the court paperwork was filed.

However, an abundance of time isn't something that Carlsbad has right now.

The city filed the court paperwork Friday because the deadline to file a legal challenge to the high school project's draft environmental impact report is Monday.

"Once the statute of limitations runs out, we can't sue any more -- we're out of luck," Mobaldi said.

The city and the district have already ironed out some issues.

One initial stumbling block was the future eastward extension of Cannon Road. The agencies were at odds over what path that future roadway would take, but eventually reached a compromise, Mobaldi said.

Now, the city is seeking financial reimbursement for the increase in traffic that the school is expected to bring to Cannon Road and College Boulevard. Carlsbad officials also want a proposed private roadway within the school property to become a public roadway.

The school's proposed private road contains two lanes of what would eventually be a four-lane Cannon Road, Mobaldi said.

In the court paperwork, the city declares that the school district's project description in the environmental document is "incomplete, inconsistent and misleading" and it states that the document fails to evaluate the project's "significant impacts on traffic."

Mobaldi declined to say how much money the city is seeking to compensate for the traffic impacts, commenting "that's the subject of negotiations."

Carlsbad schools Superintendent John Roach was out of the office Friday, but said in the press release that he was "confident we'll be able to come to a good agreement."