Since September, portions of Interstate 5 have been temporarily closed for planned or emergency closures.
And apparently San Diego County motorists are fed up and have made sure their elected officials know it. Three state senators, four members of the assembly and one San Diego city council member signed a letterdated Monday, to government transportation and law enforcement officials demanding answers about how the agencies are handling extended highway closures, in the wake of the latest incident, on Dec. 5.
“We have heard from many about the unintended consequences of the December 5 shutdown,” they wrote in the letter, which was also addressed to the San Diego Police Department. “Parents couldn’t pick up their children from daycare, people missed flights, employees couldn’t go to work or come home from work. When a major transportation artery is closed, it has profound negative consequences for our society.”
In the Dec. 5 case, one of three emergency closures in the past seven weeks, a person threatening to jump from the Del Mar Heights Road bridge caused officers to place full and partial closures of I-5 lanes in the area for about eight hours.
That followed a shutdown that lasted more than 12 hours in Oceanside on Nov. 22, prompted by a police chase and shooting.
A month earlier, a live ammunition demonstration at Camp Pendleton celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps led the state to close all I-5 lanes in the area. Political opponents of Governor Gavin Newsom mocked the decision until it was revealed that a piece of artillery hit a California Highway Patrol vehicle and was part of the security detail for Vice President J.D. Vance’s motorcade.
Additionally, each closure occurred on a Friday or Saturday, prime time for motorists heading to San Diego for a weekend getaway or for locals looking to take a trip to Los Angeles or Orange counties.
While lawmakers took pains to note that public safety is a priority, they also said complete shutdowns could also have safety implications.
“We saw images of ambulances being stopped in complete gridlock on city streets with their lights and sirens on,” Senator Catherine Blakespear said after a press conference Tuesday on the issue.
Blakespear, who posted the letter on her office’s website, was joined in signing it by local Senate colleagues Steve Padilla and Akilah Weber Pierson. They wrote that “the cumulative effect” of highway shutdowns “raises serious concerns about the coordination, communications and operation of our highway system.”
They also tried to find ways to better connect law enforcement with the public in such situations.
“Collectively, these incidents underscore the need for greater clarity on how highway closures are managed, how decisions are made in real time to address the incident, how highway operations can be quickly reopened and how public communications are handled,” they said.
They raised one specific option, asking, “Are mass text messaging communications for highway closures feasible?”
The letter was sent to Caltrans Director Dina El-Tawansy, CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee and SDPD Chief Scott Wahl. The senators signed Assemblymembers David Alvarez, Tasha Boerner, Darshana Patel and Laurie Davies, along with San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava.
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