SANDAG - Think Before You Build!

PURPOSE:

Ensure that safeguards are in place to prevent SANDAG from degrading San Diego communities one project at a time.

BACKGROUND;

SANDAGs Mobility 2030 Vision embraces strategies to minimize drive alone travel by making it fast, convenient, and safe to carpool, ride transit, bike or walk. SANDAG has issued a Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) for the year 2030 with more than $42 billion of mostly highway construction.  SANDAGs approach is to piecemeal major regional road projects into a hodgepodge of smaller segments making assessment of overall environmental impact impossible. Caltrans proposes to spend $1 Billion to widen I-5 from Oceanside to La Jolla and another $300 million to erect a 50-foot high retaining wall from Del Mar Heights Road south to Carmel Valley Road where a 50 to 70-foot high Flyover Connector would be attached to State Route 56.

Key Facts to be considered:

1.      SANDAGs approach divides the common interests of San Diego communities and fosters a harmful regional dynamic that pits local communities against one another.

2.      Every dollar spent on highways delays or curtails the future for mass transit in San Diego.

3.      The Attorney General of California stated that SANDAGs massive road building program will significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions that the state mandated reducing.

4.      SANDAG admits that we cannot build our way out of traffic congestion.

5.      The air, noise and view pollution of expanding I-5/SR-56 and constructing an additional flyover would directly impact the Torrey Pines Reserve and the Los Penasquitos Marsh Natural Preserve.  SANDAG has said, recreational areas must be considered for the greater good of having places where people can go in peace and quiet and reflect on nature.

6.      As a result of health studies showing that children who attend schools near major thoroughfares are at risk of asthma, bronchitis and decreased lung functions, State of California Senate Bill 352 requires that school districts perform an assessment of health risks to students for new school sites located within 500 feet of a major highway.

PETITION;

THEREFORE, we the undersigned specifically call upon SANDAG officials, San Diego City Council members, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, and San Diego County Board of Supervisors to:

A.     Deny use of eminent domain for taking of private property to widen the I-5.

B.     Require that the health protection requirements of SB352 be applied to highway widening projects when existing schools are located within 500 feet of a freeway, such as the Del Mar Hills Academy.

C.     Provide a comprehensive county-wide review of the cumulative environmental impacts of the combined list of highway widening projects in the 2030 Regional Transportation Plan.

D.     Declare a moratorium on all highway-widening projects where existing noise levels already exceed federal noise standards.

E.      Increase support and subsidies of community and employer commuter initiatives that reduce individual rider trips on our highways.

F.      Deny approval of infrastructure projects that will degrade and adversely impact coastal resources, sensitive habitat areas, threatened and endangered species.

G.     Deny approval of highways and infrastructure projects for new communities that sacrifice the health and quality of life of children and families in thriving existing communities.

H.     Prohibit destruction of areas of natural habitat previously established as part of environmental mitigation for construction projects.