Plan to Widen Laguna Canyon Road Rejected

The California Coastal Commission rejected a plan Wednesday to widen and realign Laguna Canyon Road, a narrow, winding thoroughfare that has claimed at least 30 lives in the past decade.

The California Department of Transportation’s proposal to widen the road from two lanes to four and to realign the curve rounding the “Big Bend” area was rejected because the design was not the least environmentally damaging alternative, commissioners said.

Coastal Commission staff members had estimated that the plan would result in “large road cuts and permanent alteration of the scenic canyon” with the removal of more than 2.3 million cubic yards of earth.

The commission voted 6 to 4 against the proposal. After the vote, Joseph Sanchez, deputy district director of planning and public transportation for Caltrans, said he was disappointed.

“I don’t think we’ll find a magic design,” he said. “Any design we come up with will have an impact on the environment.”

Caltrans had proposed extending the pavement along Laguna Canyon Road from 42 feet to approximately 78 feet to accommodate four 12-foot lanes, a 14-foot median to be used as a turning lane and two eight-foot shoulder lanes for bicycles.

The commission staff said that Caltrans “evaluated in detail only alternatives based on a 50 m.p.h. design speed . . . . Other alternatives which may have adequately addressed safety concerns but without major realignment, and which may have substantially avoided or minimized environmental impacts, were rejected. . . .”

In a letter to the commission in support of the project, Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said: “The staff report suggests that other alternatives that offer reduced safety levels should be considered essentially as a trade-off for resource protection. I would find it difficult to explain this concept to the families and friends of those who have been seriously injured or lost their lives.”