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FOOTHILL-SOUTH LAWSUITS WILL BE HEARD IN ORANGE COUNTY
IRVINE, Calif. (July 31, 2006) The Superior Court of San Diego has granted the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency’s request to move two lawsuits challenging the certification of the Environmental Impact Report for the extension of the 241 Toll Road to Interstate 5 to Orange County.
The two lawsuits were filed in San Diego Superior Court (Vista) in March 2006. The Foothill/Eastern Agency filed a motion to move the cases to Orange County Superior Court in April because the decision making body is located in Orange County.
On July 26, Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Nugent, agreed with the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency and ordered, People of the State of California v. F/ETCA, San Diego Superior Court (SDSC) Case #GIN051371 and California State Parks Foundation v. F/ETCA, SDSC Case #GIN051194, transferred to Orange County.
“The extension of the 241 Toll Road is critical to Orange County and Southern California’s mobility,” said Jim Thor, Chairman of the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency. “The road is planned to be sensitive to environmental concerns and to avoid taking homes and businesses in the community.”
“This is good news,” said Lance MacLean, Vice Chairman of the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency. “We are committed to working diligently to resolve these lawsuits so that we can provide the traffic relief that our communities want.”
About Foothill-South
Foothill-South is the last segment of the Foothill (241) Toll Road, operated by the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, and the final piece in Orange County’s planned 67-mile network of public toll roads. Foothill-South has been the subject of regional planning efforts for more than 20 years.
A conceptual highway alignment, then named the Foothill Transportation Corridor, was placed on Orange County’s Master Plan of Arterial Highways in 1981. The highway was identified to alleviate anticipated traffic demand from new housing developments in south and eastern Orange County and as a regional highway alternative to the I-5 Freeway between San Diego and Los Angeles counties.
The purpose of Foothill-South is to provide improvements to the transportation infrastructure system that would help alleviate future traffic congestion and accommodate the need for mobility, access, goods movement and future traffic demand on I-5 Freeway. The need for additional transportation infrastructure in south Orange County is based on population and growth projections for the next 25 years. Population is projected to increase by 30%, housing by 25% and jobs by 51% in 2025.
Since 1996, TCA has participated in a comprehensive federal environmental review process with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), Marine Corps-Camp Pendleton and Caltrans – a group known as the Collaborative. Through this process, the Collaborative identified the purpose and
need for the project – to relieve traffic from I-5 – and selected toll-road and non-toll road project alternatives that would be subject to environmental studies.
More: www.foothillsouth.com
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