It wasn’t more than a few months ago the Wildomar City Council approved the Updated Housing Element which had met the approval of the State of California.
In that housing element is a section entitled 3.10 Transportation
Close-up of area in question.
Monte Vista Drive is designated a secondary highway, a secondary highway under Riverside County Ordinance 461 Standard 94 (therefore Wildomar Standard) is a minimum of 100 feet in total width.
Monte Vista Drive is located on the east side of the 15 freeway and is the only link between Baxter Road (maybe soon to be Wildomar Boulevard as nobody knows what a Baxter is) and Bundy Canyon Road on that side of the freeway.
With the City of Wildomar hell bent on developing the stretch of Bundy Canyon Road into a retail mecca it is imperative that Monte Vista Drive be built out to its full potential, and them some which I will explain a little later.
This stretch of roadway is a vital link from the homes in Windsong Valley and southeastern Wildomar and an additional by-pass for the 15 freeway in the event it becomes closed.
The future of the roadway is in jeopardy as the Planning Commission in a meeting on Wednesday November 5, 2014 will decide whether to allow Cornerstone Community Church to proceed with another planned expansion. This expansion would allow a preschool to be built so close to a reduced width roadway that a true secondary highway status will become unattainable.
The City engineer and staff have given their blessing to allowing a future roadway of only 82 feet in width.
What city staff has proposed allowing.
This proposal eliminates the shoulder lane, sidewalk, multi-use trail, and landscaping on the west side of the roadway, next to the freeway. It also eliminates the shoulder, landscaping along with providing a reduced width multi-use trail with the fence not between the trail and sidewalk but between the trail and property line. The elimination of all landscaping in this plan will provide a naked strip of highway for over a thousand feet at 55 mph no less.
I said future because the increase in traffic will not be addressed in this go around as the church will be allowed to continue to funnel traffic out of two existing driveways without the necessary road widening.
Before I said Monte Vista should be built to its full potential as a secondary highway, shown in drawing as being 100 feet in width, 112 feet with a center turn lane. As this city has proclaimed its to desire to be a sustainable city which allows for all forms of transportation to be located along the transportation corridors it would require this roadway to have a multi-use trail, sidewalks and landscaping on both sides of the roadway making it necessary to increase the width an additional 16 feet to a total width of 128 feet.
In keeping with the “Complete Street Act” AB 1358 signed into law on September 30, 2008 followed up by Deputy Directive-64-R1 of the California Department of Transportation and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.
This bill requires, commencing January 1, 2011, that the legislative body of a city or county, upon any substantive revision of the circulation element of the general plan, modify the circulation element to plan for a balanced, multimodal transportation network that meets the needs of all users of streets, roads, and highways, defined to include motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, children, persons with disabilities, seniors, movers of commercial goods, and users of public transportation, in a manner that is suitable to the rural, suburban, or urban context of the general plan. By requiring new duties of local officials, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
Additional information can be found at
http://opr.ca.gov/docs/Update_GP_Guidelines_Complete_Streets.pdf
http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/sustainability/cs_caltrans_district_7.pdf