Rainbow Planning Group attempts to rename existing roads; offers alternatives to railway

In an attempt to ensure the safety of Rainbow Valley residents, the Rainbow Planning Group (RPG) and Rainbow Valley Fire Department are working on providing new names or renaming existing roads in the Rainbow area.

“For the past 50 years, the county has issued lot splits that began with 40 acres being split into four 10-acre lots, which were then split into two five-acre lots,” said RPG Chair Jim Anderson. “In the allotment process, easements were made without the county asking for addresses.”

According to Anderson, several streets in Rainbow are affected by multiple streets having the same name, impacting “50 to 75 different houses.”

“There is a quarter-block of Rainbow Valley Boulevard that is on the wrong side of the opposite side of the highway [from the rest of Rainbow Valley Boulevard], which causes confusion. Rainbow Heights Road is the name of five different streets,” said Anderson. “This can make it difficult for emergency responders, the United Postal Service and other parties to find you.”

Street names would be altered or modified so that when the street addresses are looked up, they could be easily found. However, the cost of renaming streets is approximately $2,000 per street, said Anderson. Since 10 streets would need their names modified, the cost would be approximately $20,000.

“This task is needed to help emergency services to locate the roads affected,” said Anderson in a letter to Supervisor Bill Horn. “This support could come in the relief form from fees required by [the Department of Planning and Land Use] in its road name department, either by waiving the fees or a one time grant. The RPG would follow county guidelines and use county forms.”

“The RPG Board of Supervisors is looking for creative things to do in order to raise money,” said Anderson. “For now, the project is in purgatory. My biggest fear is that someone will lose their life or quality of life. We are asking for help in assisting emergency services in doing their job. Every day this issue continues, it puts people at risk.”

In addition to renaming streets in the Rainbow area, the Rainbow Planning Group has taken strides to voice its concerns regarding the proposed railway that would run from Temecula into Escondido, which would cut through the Rainbow area.

The proposed High Speed Railway would divert from the I-15 freeway, then tunnel through the community of Rainbow and reconnect with the corridor in the Stewart Canyon area to the south of Rainbow.

“The current proposed tunnel alignment outside of the I-15 corridor in Rainbow will have high projected costs, and the tunnel section would result in considerable right-of-way constraints, making this alignment alternative impractical,” said Anderson. “The purpose of a tunnel would be to improve travel times and eliminate tight curves. However, eliminating tight curves would result in tunnel alignments through the community of Rainbow that do not follow existing transportation rights-of-way.”

Anderson stated that the alignment would have high potential impacts to the natural environment and to agricultural lands that do not conform to the community plan, and believes that the alignment would have greater impacts to the aquatic and riparian forest resources and threatened and endangered species.

“There is a lot of imminent domain, trees and groves that would be affected,” said Anderson, who believes the water table in the Rainbow area is very high, and that any changes to the table would result in impacts upon the forested areas.

As an alternative to the proposed route, the RPG believes the best alignment is on or under the I-15 freeway. The RPG’s proposed route would enter a tunnel on the west side of the interstate just south of Highway 79 in Temecula, then transition to the east side of the corridor, just north of the Old Highway 395 and 5th Street intersection, and continue to follow the corridor to the area of the Old Highway 395 and Reche Road intersection. The tunnel would then pass back underneath the intersection with the south end of the tunnel on the side of a hill on the west side of I-15.

This would keep the railway from harming the habitat areas on the eastern side of the I-15, which are pre-approved “take and preserve areas,” said Anderson.

“We gave our input in time,” said Anderson, who said the next meeting to determine if the county took the RPG recommendation into consideration is not until sometime in April.

“We try to represent the local people,” said Anderson. “We believe we know what [Rainbow residents] want.”

To comment on this story online, visit http://www.thevillagenews.com.