First, I’d like to update you on the history of state Route 67. In the late 1980’s both the California Highway Patrol and Caltrans described SR-67 as a “dangerous and obsolete” highway.
In 1987, taxpayers ed the TransNet tax, which raised sales tax by 1/2 cent. The tax increase ed solely on the promise of politicians to fund 14 specified rural highway projects, including the widening of SR-67 to four lanes from Lakeside to Ramona. Unfortunately, the bulk of the TransNet funds were transferred to the coast to expand the MTS bus system and build a trolley system, both of which have a current 3% ridership.
In the succeeding 35 years, the population of Ramona has nearly doubled and SR-67 has become even more dangerous and obsolete. In a five-year study from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2021, according to the CHP, there 772 accidents with 479 injuries and 13 fatalities.
In addition, we have experienced two failed evacuations in the conflagrations of 2003 and 2007. You drive SR-67 at your own peril.
Four years ago, the Ramona Community Planning Group began petitioning SANDAG and Caltrans to widen SR-67 to the four lanes that were promised decades earlier. The effort included 23 personal appearances by of the RG before the SANDAG Board of Directors.
Our presentations were simple and straightforward. We requested two additional lanes on SR-67 to increase safety and facilitate evacuation. Our historical facts were indisputable and both SANDAG and Caltrans responded.
As part of the SANDAG 2021 Regional Transportation Plan, five corridor plans were created — one of which is the San Vicente Corridor Comprehensive Multimodal Plan that encomes SR-67 from Ramona to Lakeside — and wide buffer areas on either side of the highway. The population within the corridor is 107,000 people.
The document they created is called the Comprehensive Multimodal Corridor Plan (CM), the draft of which was released in late May. The regional, state, and local laws and initiatives that guide the CM are the SANDAG 2021 Regional Plan, the California Transportation Plan, the Caltrans Corridor Planning Guide, and the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure, which apparently outweighs all the rest.
They began with an extensive needs assessment study finding that 80% of Ramona households have two cars, 18% have one car, and 2% have no cars. Ninety percent of trips in Ramona are made by car with 7% walking, 2% by transit and 1% by bike.
We are a car-bound community because we are rural and spread out.
They identified our needs and prioritized them in order of importance as follows: safety, evacuation, active transportation (bike, walk, horses, scooter), goods movement, traffic congestion, utilities, information and technology. The CM draft plan contains 232 projects based on a short-term (0-5 years), medium term (5-15 years) and long term (15 years or longer) schedule to completion.
Included in the 232 projects are 84 bicycle-related projects?, 13 wildlife crossings, eight new equestrian trails, and five lonely SR-67 shoulder widenings. You’d think everyone in Ramona was on a bike even though their own stats indicate that only 1% of Ramona residents use bikes.
Although evacuation is identified as a priority in their plan, the solutions the CM proposes are scheduled in the “long term” category (15 years) and contain no additional traffic lanes. Conversely, the findings of the Evacuation Plan Recommendations Report, which studied Ramona’s evacuation status, found that in order to safely and effectively evacuate Ramona today, it will require four outbound lanes and one inbound lane.
The CM Draft Plan is offering a long list of Band-aids, but not the four lanes recommended by the Evacuation Plan Report that we’ve needed for 35 years. There is a plan that provides four lanes, but the CM does not it. Instead, they offer Ramona an extensive list of general improvements that would be wonderful if they were combined with the additional lanes we requested.
The reason for denying additional lanes is simple. The entire state of California along with county and local government, are being swallowed by the climate change agenda. Included in that agenda is the reduction of greenhouse gasses by reducing vehicle miles traveled in cars, encouraging walking and bike riding, using mass transit and of course a moratorium on adding lanes to rural highways like SR-67.
Their motivation is the belief that climate change is an existential threat that will be lethal within 10 years. Well, I see more immediate existential threats — dying in a head-on collision on SR-67 or burning up in your car during another failed evacuation.
The CM is accepting comments on their draft plan until July 30. If you would like to comment, go to San Vicente Multimodal Corridor Plan CM website. There you can read the draft and will have access in English for your comment.
Dan Summers is a member of the Ramona Community Planning Group and chair of the Ramona State Routes Subcommittee
