Detours part of new system to relieve I-15 traffic

Drivers should soon be able to get around severe traffic delays through a pilot project coming to the inland corridor section of Interstate 15.

By mid-October the I-15 Integrated Corridor Management Project will be fully operational between the Miramar/Pomerado roads exit and State Route 78. Through that stretch, alternate routes in Rancho Bernardo, Poway, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Sabre Springs, Rancho Penasquitos, Mira Mesa and Escondido have been developed to move vehicles onto surface streets when freeway lanes are closed due to traffic accidents and other incidents.

San Diego and Dallas are the only two of eight applicants for federal grant money to be approved for the pilot program, said Alex Estrella a senior transportation planner with SANDAG when speaking to the Rancho Bernardo Planning Board on Sept. 17.

“This is very innovative and changes the way we do things in the region,” Estrella said.

The new “umbrella system” is due to cooperation between the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG); Caltrans; the cities of San Diego, Poway and Escondido; North County Transit District and San Diego Metropolitan Transit System.

Through integrated corridor management, these partners are able to address congestion in real-time under normal and incident conditions. When such conditions are present, the system will devise the best alternate surface street routes to detour traffic.

Signs have started going up in Poway and will soon appear in the other communities directing drivers to the alternative routes. When activated, freeway signs will tell drivers which alternate route to take and street signals will be adjusted to keep the increased traffic flowing on the surface streets. When the system is not activated the traffic signals on the surface streets will operate on their normal timing schedule.

The system will also take into account the time of day, so for example, freeway drivers will not be detoured onto Pomerado Road in the early morning and mid-afternoon of weekdays in order to not create more traffic on that street during school arrival and dismissal times since there are several schools along Pomerado, Estrella said.

The integrated system will have “200 intersections talking to each other,” he said, noting San Diego County was chosen in part because of the recent transit improvements it has made along Interstate 15, including Bus Rapid Transit, Direct Access Ramps, transit stations, Express Lanes and an improved arterial network.

In all, there will be 23 alternative route signs posted within the City of San Diego, nine in Poway and 10 in Escondido, he said. The surface streets selected for the program include Scripps-Poway Parkway, Poway Road, Pomerado Road, Ted Williams Parkway, Camino del Norte, Rancho Bernardo Road, Sabre Springs Parkway, Rancho Carmel Drive, Carroll Canyon Road, Black Mountain Road, State Route 56, Mira Mesa Boulevard, Centre City Parkway, Auto Park Way and State Route 78.

In addition to the freeway signs alerting drivers to take the alternate routes, Estrella said there is a 511 San Diego mobile app they can install on their smartphones, available for free through the Apple App Store and Google Play. For details, go to sandag.org/ICM.