{"id":247576,"date":"2014-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/i-8-goes-under-the-microscope\/"},"modified":"2014-08-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T07:00:00","slug":"i-8-goes-under-the-microscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/i-8-goes-under-the-microscope\/","title":{"rendered":"I-8 goes under the microscope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hutton Marshall |\u00a0Uptown Editor<\/p>\n

SANDAG leads study on improving busy transit corridor<\/b><\/p>\n

Key agencies throughout the city recently teamed up to get a general sense of how to improve transportation along San Diego\u2019s central interstate.<\/p>\n

\"(below)<\/a>
(below) Map outlining the I-8 Corridor Study (Courtesy SANDAG<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), a regional planning agency, teamed up with the City of San Diego, the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) to examine a 13.6-mile stretch of the Interstate 8, hoping to relieve some of the traffic congestion notorious in Southern California.<\/p>\n

On July 25 and 29, the four organizations hosted their first round of community information meetings on the I-8 Corridor Study<\/a>, which SANDAG plans to finish by Spring 2015. The meetings, held in Old Town and College Area, were an opportunity for the community to weigh in on specific areas along the portion of the I-8 in question \u2014 which stretches from College Area to the interstate\u2019s end in Ocean Beach.<\/p>\n

Residents weighed in on several specific issues, such as the Fairmont Drive entry onto I-8 just past the eastern edge of Kensington, as well as the jam-packed region of Mission Valley funneling into I-8 entryways.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s manager, Scott Strelecki, an associate regional planner at SANDAG, said lane expansion of the actual interstate wasn\u2019t on the table. Rather, he said the study hoped to identify potential transportation projects that would compliment the I-8 corridor.<\/p>\n

Overall, Strelecki said, the study is not in-depth enough to see specific projects to fruition, but rather look for areas or projects with great potential for improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the important thing that \u2014 when we\u2019re at a workshop like this \u2014 that\u2019s often hard for the public to understand is that this is just the beginning of analyzing the corridor,\u201d Strelecki said. \u201cOnce we have the final study done, there may be things that have strong potential to be built, and if there\u2019s funding capabilities for it, then it\u2019ll need more detailed analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strelecki said the study will look at the I-8 Corridor within the context of SANDAG\u2019s Regional Transportation Plan, which lays out long-term transportation planning as far ahead as 2050.<\/p>\n

\u201cCorridor studies are going to take things that already exist and say, we know this is already planned, let\u2019s put in in there. Then they\u2019re going to say, well let\u2019s try to identify things on top of that, that are issues that we can address,\u201d Strelecki said. \u201cIt\u2019s your opportunity to test some things and see if other things shake out.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Strelecki said other studies have analyzed the I-8\u2019s span across the state, there hasn\u2019t been a study done specifically on the I-8 through San Diego in recent memory.<\/p>\n

On SANDAG\u2019s website, it lists right-of-way constraints, freeway interchanges, \u201cselected\u201d local streets and intersections, and active transportation among other potential projects to be considered within the scope of the study.<\/p>\n

The two July meetings were just the first round of public input to be gathered for the corridor study, said SANDAG spokesperson Tedi Jackson. SANDAG will now compile and publish the feedback it received. It will then analyze the corridor with the public input in mind before holding a more focused round of public input meetings at the end of 2014.<\/p>\n

Visita sandag.org\/I-8<\/a> for more information about the I-8 Corridor Study.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hutton Marshall |\u00a0Uptown Editor<\/p>","protected":false},"author":740,"featured_media":247577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"I-8 goes under the microscope","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/740"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}