Local street improvement program adds $1,451M for Camino Del Rey drainage

The annual update of San Diego County’s TransNet local street improvement program added $1,451,000 of TransNet funding for the Camino Del Rey drainage improvements.

A 5-0 San Diego County Board of Supervisors vote Tuesday, April 21, approved the updated list of projects which will be funded by TransNet local streets and roads revenue over the next five years. The update covers planned expenditures from fiscal year 2020-2021 to fiscal year 2024-2025.

In 2004, the county’s voters passed an extension of the half-cent TransNet sales tax which is divided between highways, transit and local streets and roads. The county expects to receive $129.2 million of TransNet revenue during the five-year period from fiscal year 2020-2021 to fiscal year 2024-2025.

The regional transportation improvement plan is coordinated by the San Diego Association of Governments, which administers the TransNet funding, and the RTIP includes the local street improvement program. The RTIP is updated every other year – the most recent SANDAG update was approved in September 2018 – but amended on a quarterly basis. The county updates its local street improvement program annually.

In 2015, the county amended its local street improvement program to add the Camino Del Rey drainage improvements which will upgrade the existing drainage system to accommodate a 100-year flood.

The work will raise a one-mile dip section out of the flood plain and install new drainage culverts. In the county’s 2018 update the planned TransNet expenditures were $1,000,000 for fiscal year 2018-2019, $504,000 in 2019-20, $10,000 apiece during 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, and $1,000,000 in 2022-2023. That amount didn't include funding for future years, and the project at the time was scheduled for completion in 2024-2025.

Due to TransNet revenue and schedule changes, the county subsequently believed that the project could be completed by the end of that five-year cycle, so the 2019 update retained the $1,000,000 amount for 2018-2019 and the $504,000 amount in 2019-2020 while increasing the TransNet funding to $1,000,000 in 2020-2021, $3,000,000 during 2021-2022, and $1,356,000 for 2022-2023. That increased the total five-year amount from $2,524,000 to $6,860,000.

Because the $1,504,000 for fiscal years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 was removed from the new plan the five-year total will decrease to $6,807,000 although the seven-year amount including the previous plan is $8,311,000. The updated planned expenditures are $807,000 for fiscal year 2020-2021 and $3,000,000 apiece for 2021-2022 and 2022-2023.

The improvements to the intersection of Stage Coach Lane and Reche Road widened the approach to the intersection to allow additional turn lanes and also accommodate bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

The 2018 plan utilized $200,000 of TransNet revenue during 2018-2019 for project closeout tasks. The 2018-2019 TransNet expenditures also included $160,000 for the intersection improvements at East Vista Way and Gopher Canyon Road which added turn lanes. Both of those completed projects were removed from the new plan.

The county is now including road maintenance in its local street improvement program appropriations, and the 2018 plan had a five-year total of $25 million for roadway maintenance and overlay to fund road sealing, asphalt concrete overlays, sidewalk repairs and other pavement resurfacing or rehabilitation.

The total amount in the 2018 plan included $9,172,000 for the 5th Supervisorial District consisting of $876,000 in 2018-2019 and $2,074,230 for each year from 2019-2020 to 2022-2023.

The update calls for $28,516,000 of TransNet expenditures between fiscal year 2020-2021 and fiscal year 2024-2025 with $2,074,230 each year equating to $10,731,150 for roads in the 5th District.

The county’s annual cost share of $12,500 for the regional traffic signal management program is also included in the local street improvement program. That amount was unchanged from the 2018 plan.

Joe Naiman can be reached by email at [email protected].