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Roadway project juggles a variety of concerns

by MARY BENDER
August 7, 2005, Riverside Press-Enterprise

Building a 32-mile highway over varied terrain will be a lengthy, expensive undertaking, strictly from an engineering and construction vantage point. But factor in community resistance over which of the eight proposed routes would be best -- plus environmental requirements to avoid the habitat of endangered species -- and the project's degree of difficulty has increased exponentially.

Deciding whose ox will be gored, and by how much, is a key reason why the $1 billion Mid County Parkway will take until 2030 to build.

Should transportation needs trump all concerns, considering that Riverside County's population is expected to double in the next 15 years? Should people's homes and businesses take precedence over wildlife habitats? Should open space and the area's rural atmosphere be preserved, based on fears that building the parkway would just draw more development to the area?

And now, amid state government worries about the seismic safety of Perris Dam, county officials are backing away from a route that would curve below the southern edge of the 31-year-old reservoir.

The Mid County Parkway is proposed to run between southern Corona and San Jacinto, possibly passing through Mead Valley and Perris along the way. The six- to eight-lane roadway, which would run roughly between Interstate 15 and Highway 79, is still in the early environmental-review stages.

"The number of lanes will be determined by traffic projections through 2035," said Cathy Bechtel, project manager of the Mid County Parkway. The parkway would relieve east-west traffic congestion now shouldered by the 91 freeway and Highway 60, both of which are farther north than the proposed project.

Residents' Concerns

As part of the environmental review -- slated for completion in 2007 -- the Riverside County Transportation Commission held a public meeting Wednesday night to explain its project and gather feedback on the routes being considered. An estimated 330 people crowded the auditorium at Columbia Elementary School in Mead Valley.

"It takes ... a lot of nerve for us to get out of our driveways," Mina Jones, a Mead Valley resident who lives on Cajalco Road, said at the meeting. Traffic already is heavy on the two-lane road, and she wondered whether a proposed route that would follow Cajalco Road would only make matters worse.

One route would wind north of Lake Mathews, overlapping with El Sobrante Road part of the way. Other proposals would have the roadway run south of Lake Mathews -- some following Cajalco Road and Ramona Expressway on the way to San Jacinto. Many Perris residents oppose another variation, the Far South Option, that would travel along Placentia Avenue and Rider Street for portions of its route.

Laurie and Louis Guiso moved into their "dream home" last October. Constructed on an acre of land near Placentia Avenue and Evans Road, their house lies directly in the path of the Far South Option. If they had known the county's plans, they never would have had the house built there, they said.

Depending on which route the transportation commission chooses, it may have to purchase some homeowners' properties, at full market value, and pay their relocation costs. But Laurie Guiso doubted that it could "replace" what she and her husband just acquired, she told Bechtel.

"Why didn't the county disclose this (parkway project) to us when we bought the property?" Laurie Guiso said after the meeting. "I would have sold them an acre of vacant land."

Stephens' Kangaroo Rat

The commission is evaluating all the routes based on criteria including cost, environmental impact, and the effects on homes and businesses. "Unfortunately, on every single alignment, someone is going to be affected," Bechtel told the audience.

Along portions of some routes, the Stephens' kangaroo rat stands in the way of the bulldozers. It has been designated an endangered species by the federal government and a threatened species by the state Department of Fish and Game.

Other factors to consider are Riverside County's Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, which preserves open space for vegetation and wildlife, and another reserve surrounding Lake Mathews.

The Endangered Habitats League, a Los Angeles-based environmental group, has monitored the parkway project. Executive director Dan Silver said the Stephens' kangaroo rat is a "unique" creature native to Riverside County and northern San Diego County.

"It's a very interesting animal. It never drinks water -- it makes its own water internally from the food it eats," Silver said, noting its diet of seeds.

"It lives in these very dry areas and there's no water, so it has adapted. That's why these roads create problems, because they're being proposed to go through the lands that were already set aside," Silver said.

"We're supportive of the fact that RCTC has developed some other (route) options to look at. But now we have to wait for the full analysis ... to find out which (proposed) route is least damaging," Silver added.

The Endangered Habitats League works with federal, state and local governments to implement regional conservation plans.

"By the time this thing is built, it's going to be obsolete," groused Jones, the Cajalco Road resident.

Mary Bender can be reached at (951) 893-2103 or mbender@pe.com