Planning is underway to provide traffic relief to Orange County’s southernmost communities along Interstate 5, part of an ongoing plan to ease freeway congestion for residents, workers and visitors through South County.
The Orange County Transportation Authority, in partnership with Caltrans, is studying potential improvements to approximately 3.4 miles of I-5 between the border with San Diego County and the Avenida Pico Interchange in San Clemente.
The project is currently in the environmental phase and OCTA is seeking input from residents and other community stakeholders to determine what improvements, if any, should be made. The two alternatives being studied are:
• A no-build alternative
• Extending one high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane in each direction of I-5 through the project area. This alternative would also implement ramp improvement where feasible and auxiliary lanes throughout the corridor and would include Transportation System Management/Transportation Demand Management features to maximize traffic flow.
Two public scoping meetings, one in person and the other virtual, are planned for later this month to discuss the project alternatives and to solicit public input.
Those scheduled meetings are planned for:
• In-Person Meeting, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on July 28
Triton Center, San Clemente High School, 700 Avenida Pico, San Clemente, CA 92673
• Virtual Meeting, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 2
Online at: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-IjZdO2zSzy6mvYdDoPgnA
OCTA, which is Orange County’s transportation planning agency, is responsible for providing a balanced and sustainable transportation system for the entire county. The potential improvements between the county line and Avenida Pico are part of a larger focus on south Orange County, which is necessary because over the next 25 years, projections show population growing by 170,000 residents, and an additional 130,000 jobs are expected.
In 2020, OCTA joined with Caltrans and the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) to propose three near-term projects to provide traffic relief in South County, thereby eliminating the need for the long-debated extension of the SR-241 extension.
The proposed improvements to the I-5 between the San Diego County Line and Avenida Pico are one of those three near-term projects. The other two are an extension of Los Patrones Parkway from its current end at Cow Camp Road to Avenida La Pata, and improving Ortega Highway – for approximately 1 mile between Calle Entradero in San Juan Capistrano to the city/county border.
OCTA is also working on a study of South Orange County’s longer-term transportation needs through the South Orange County Multimodal Transportation Study (SOCMTS), examining a wide range of transportation needs over the next 25 years, including improvements to streets, bus and other transit options, highways and bikeways.
Since the last major South County study, OCTA has invested more than $1.5 billion in the area, including the I-5 carpool lane project between San Juan Creek Road and Avenida Pico, and the I-5 widening between SR-73 and El Toro Road now under construction.
More information on the I-5 project from the San Diego County Line to Avenida Pico is available online at www.octa.net/I5CountyLine.
Comments can be submitted until 5 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 15 in any of these formats:
• Email to [email protected] with the subject line “I-5 Improvement Project from the County Line to Avenida Pico”.
• Regular mail to: Jayna Harris, Associate/Senior Environmental Planner, 20 Executive Park, Suite 200, Irvine, CA 92614
The current environmental phase of the project is federally funded, with funding for future design and construction phases to be determined. The project is scheduled for the draft environmental document phase by mid-2023, with construction potentially beginning in 2030.
