The La Jolla Community Planning Association (LJCPA) voted unanimously to support the city’s proposal that Segment 4 of the Torrey Pines Corridor Project — on Torrey Pines Road between La Jolla Shores Drive and Prospect Place — should be the first phase to be completed. Trustee Joe LaCava, who crafted the motion, added that city-owned structures and vegetation that interfere with sidewalks and bicycle lanes should be removed, traffic lanes along the entire length of Torrey Pines Road should be narrowed to provide traffic calming throughout the corridor, and coastal view access and safety debris measures should be improved immediately. “It provides some measure of safety for the rest of the segments that can be done easily and cost effectively during the project — if not before the project starts,” he said of the addendums which were also supported unanimously by the committee. District 1 Councilwoman Sherri Lightner presented the city’s recommendation at the meeting on July 7 and urged the LJCPA to support the go-ahead for the project. “This project has been more than a decade in the making,” she said. Twenty recommendations were approved by all of the community planning groups over the years and have been incorporated into the project’s preliminary design. City consultants then broke the project into four segments in order to reasonably attack the reconstruction in a cost-effective manner, said Project Engineer Julio Fuentes. The city recommended Segment 4 be completed first because a bluff stabilization project has already been underway there, the segment has the least amount of property rights and construction issues, and a project to build a wall between Roseland Drive and Little Street has already been put aside for five years. “We already have projects there, you get the most bang for your buck in that area, and there’s less issues,” Fuentes said. Despite a wide consensus that the project must move forward, Lightner called attention to numerous requests to her office to change or slow down the project’s design or construction to further discuss priorities. “While I do understand these requests, I believe we need to move this process forward. I’m worried that any further delays will wind up costing us this whole project,” she said. “I’d like to see it happen finally.” On June 23, the Traffic and Transportation (T&T) board passed the same motion supporting the city’s decision to move forward with design plans for Segment 4. “I feel very strongly about going forward with Segment 4. The design is sound and the numbers are sound,” said T&T board member Joe Dickson. T&T board member and LJCPA trustee Orrin Gabsch — the only abstaining voter at the T&T meeting — explained his abstention. “We’re talking about two years of disruption on Torrey Pines, and you’re going to have a lot of businesses that are going to be suffering big-time in this community,” he said. “I will support this motion, but I do it with a great deal of angst.” In an attempt to alleviate Gabsch’s concerns, fellow trustee Phil Merten suggested that the construction will be traffic-calming. “Once you slow the speed of traffic down and you’re able to travel closer together, you actually get more people through the roadway,” Merten said. “Right now we race down Torrey Pines and slam on the breaks at Prospect Street. It is quite possible that narrowing the lanes to slow traffic down may actually improve the number of cars getting into the Village.” $220,000 of approximately $800,000 in federal grant funding has been spent on design for the project. Fuentes estimates that 20 percent of the project’s total bill, an estimated $26.5 million, will be for the “soft costs” including design, environmental review, and construction permits. “If we don’t start, we don’t get it done. We need to have something to show folks to get money — and that requires a design,” Lightner said. “I think it’s time we stop talking and start moving forward.” For more information about the Torrey Pines Corridor project, visit http://www.sandiego- .gov/engineering-cip/projects- programs/torreypines.shtml.