Los Patrones Parkway Extension: The TCA Nightmare Continues Unabated

Los Patrones Parkway Extension Part I: Ecologically & Aesthetically Destructive, A Surface Street Nightmare

The demographic most egregiously affected by this latest “Trojan Horse” incarnation, including stellar citizen watchdog NGOs like “Coalition To Save San Clemente” and “Not My Toll Road,” can put those "campaign corks" back in the bottle. Sorry, but yours appears to have been a “Pyrrhic Victory.”

Wake Up! Your city leaders and the Transportation Corridor Agency (TCA) left out some critical information….look again, you seem to have won a minor battle but likely lost the critical surface streets war.

“The project will extend Los Patrones Parkway—the free arterial route that runs south from the 241 Toll Road’s terminus at Oso Parkway—from its current end at Cow Camp Road to Avenida La Pata in San Clemente. The planned connection between Cow Camp and La Pata will include a roughly 700-foot stretch of road within the San Clemente city limits. The City Council a year ago this month approved an amendment in San Clemente’s General Plan recognizing the extended Los Patrones.” https://www.thecapistranodispa...

What we have here is basically the TCA’s originally designated Route 14, but shortened, not extended down to Avenida Pico, instead access and egress via that 700-foot incursion at Avenida La Pata, extreme North San Clemente admitted.

Aerial Topography View: Red Dot/Dash Is Northern San Clemente City Limit. Current terminus of Los Patrones at Cow Camp is in the upper right corner

And left out? There will be a new bridge flying over San Juan Creek (extension of LPP) and probably over the Ortega Highway too.

Either tunneling or ploughing on through (VERY expensive alternatives, pick your poison), its most likely entrance/exit at Avenida La Pata just north of Talega.

This will result in a gamut of significant adverse impacts that as a land use and environmental compliance analyst, I see no potential mitigations that could comply with either the National Environmental Policy (NEPA) or California Environmental Quality (CEQA) Acts respectively. For now, the TCA has written another one of its infamous "we'll get to that later" manifestos.

Which the TCA is renowned for "To Be Determined" (TBD), "To Be Announced" (TBA) and its perennial Siamese Twins, environmental and fiscal IOUs. Usually they hit all 4 bases in one Press Release!

I’m also a retired general contractor with both commercial and residential building experiences in or near environmentally sensitive habitats, on steep terrain and in slide, fire and flood-prone zones. The residents of San Clemente have been duped, lulled into a false sense of security, led to believe that impacts to their city will be practically nil.

Those in San Juan Capo should exhale a sigh of relief, this extension will probably alleviate a lot of the vehicular burden now imposed near the Antonio Parkway/Ortega Highway intersection. And though sheer, unproven speculation by the TCA, might alleviate some brake lights on the 5 Freeway through SJC.

Instead of on and off-ramping at Cow Camp, commuters seeking/leaving San Clemente itself or those pass through 5 Freeway commuters will impose themselves on San Clemente connectors and arterials.

The extension is a classic example of a false flag operation, whereby the perpetrator’s ulterior motives and endgame are intentionally mispresented. What’s been negotiated hasn’t been well-analyzed, leaving those who live near or commute on Avenida La Pata and Avenida Pico victims of a ruse so far in the future that it’s not ringing any alarm bells.

Wait until post-construction, gridlock and ramped up surface road traffic jams kick in…..from the LPP extension and intersection at Avenida La Pata, then south to Avenida Pico, then Avenida Pico down to the 5 Freeway. Or in reverse if traveling inland. By then it’ll be too late. San Clemente High School and its immediate vicinity could easily suffer the most onerous impacts.

If a new traffic signal and 3-way intersection for the on and off-ramp is installed, look for that to be a choke point.

Look too for ALL of the intersections inside San Clemente city limits in this migration path to experience more signal changes, more backed up vehicles plus the attendant noise, additional light at night and air pollution surges during commuter’s hours: Not to mention more hazardous conditions for bicyclists, more revved up non-resident drivers, those commercial trucks running these surface street gauntlets on their delivery runs equals increased danger.

Which axiomatically lead to collisions which then cascade, domino up and down the revised route.

I worked both with and for the 2 NGOs I named earlier. I’ve seen nothing online in mainstream media that reflects my level of concern or alarm.

Full disclosure, I don’t do social media so perhaps civic distress is being expressed in them? Hopefully, my 2 columns will re-engage as the beast-that-wouldn’t die, the destroyer of human, plant and critter environs, the TCA, won’t be allowed to go "One More Inch" than Cow Camp Road. The original "Not One More Inch" campaign designated Oso Parkway as the main target.

I’ll do a deeper dive in Part II, in which I’ll primarily focus upon the physical imposition, the hovering, unaddressed aesthetic and ecological impacts that I can’t as a professional analyst myself see mitigated.