Quality of Life

Widening Of Interstate 5 Could Begin In 2015

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published October 25, 2013 at 2:01 PM PDT

This story was published more than 11 years ago.

Caltrans officials Friday announced a timeline for widening northbound Interstate 5.

Widening Of Interstate 5 Could Begin In 2015

Motorists heading north on Interstate 5 should see construction begin on two new lanes by 2015 as part of a $6 billion plan.

The final environmental impact report is now complete, and Allan Kosup, Caltrans project director for the North Coast Corridor, said work on widening the coastal freeway should begin within two years. Ultimately, the plan is to add four new HOV lanes in the center of the existing eight lanes.

"It's a $3 billion improvement over 30 years,” Kosup said. “We're going to build it in three phases, and the first phase would be to extend one lane in each direction from Solana Beach, all the way to (state Route) 78. So we would start that in 2015 and hope to be complete in 2018.”

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The plan includes $200 million to mitigate effects on the five coastal lagoons the freeway crosses, Kosup said.

The Environmental Impact Report includes responses to 5,000 public comments.

The whole North Coast Corridor Plan is a $6 billion project.

Railway line improvements are already underway. It was also announced on Friday the number of rail lines are being doubled to allow more trains to reach job centers in Sorrento Valley.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.