Will SR-138 become a six-lane freeway?

  • Nursing student Amanda Anderson has lived in the Neenach area for 22 years and has been in a bad accident. She thinks the improvements can make SR-138 safer. [Patric Hedlund for The Mountain Enterprise]

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    Nursing student Amanda Anderson has lived in the Neenach area for 22 years and has been in a bad accident. She thinks the improvements can make SR-138 safer. [Patric Hedlund for The Mountain Enterprise]

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  • Residents flocked to the May 2 Open House at Grace Chapel to review the updated engineering alternatives for Highway 138 (Avenue D) upgrades. [Jeff Zimmerman photo]

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    Residents flocked to the May 2 Open House at Grace Chapel to review the updated engineering alternatives for Highway 138 (Avenue D) upgrades. [Jeff Zimmerman photo]

  • Some of the proposals included loops around Neenach and Antelope Acres (above) to avoid major changes to residents’ properties. [Patric Hedlund for The Mountain Enterprise]

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    Some of the proposals included loops around Neenach and Antelope Acres (above) to avoid major changes to residents’ properties. [Patric Hedlund for The Mountain Enterprise]

By Patric Hedlund

“We listened,” is the short message lead engineer Robert Blume most wanted to convey to those attending the public information meetings in Neenach and Antelope Acres on May 2 and 4. The subject was the proposed Northwest 138 Corridor Improvement Project between Interstate 5 and State Route 14.

A year earlier, gasps and loud protests had been heard from shocked residents of the Western Antelope Valley when they learned that a four- to six-lane freeway was being planned to run by the front doors of their peaceful country homes, sometimes almost at the front porch.

The difference between the plans described in that March 2014 scoping meeting and these May 2015 public information sessions was stark. The recent meetings showed a series of alternative routes being studied for the 36 mile corridor.

“I think people in my area were pretty relieved,” said Neenach resident Jeff Zimmerman. “I was pretty impressed. These alternatives are much, much better.”

Proposed alternative routes for the multilane freeway still intersect with Interstate 5 and pass Quail Lake as the current two-lane State Route 138 does.

But one of the new proposed alignments for the multilane freeway is to drop to the south into agricultural lands to avoid homes when it approaches the residential Neenach area, Zimmerman observed.

Antelope Acres residents also saw a major shift in alignment options to bypass their neighborhood, no longer taking out eight existing homes. One of the proposed realignment options might possibly affect only two homes, estimated Mark Dierking, Community Relations Manager at Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro).

The two “Open House” information events this month showed three alternatives for the Corridor Improvement Project. At the Grace Chapel in Neenach and the Fox Airfield near Antelope Acres, engineering plans were laid across flat tables, aerial maps were placed along the wall and explanatory diagrams were placed on easels to show the public the alternatives in several ways.

Why Is This Occurring?

State Route 138 is currently a two-lane corridor between Interstate 5 and Lancaster, winding through an open landscape of windswept hills, seasonal wildflowers and fallow farmland. That landscape is changing quickly however, as L.A. County gives permits for utility scale renewable energy electrical generation facilities in the region. Two large solar facilities are already in place, with an estimated 29 more to come.

Tejon Ranch Company also received encouragement in the form of preferential rezoning by L.A. County in the Western Antelope Valley this year.

The rezoning southeast of Quail Lake, near the current SR-138, will allow “Economic Opportunity Zone” industrial parks and close to the 23,000 homes originaly envisioned by TRC in its multi-phase Centennial City development plan.

Caltrans and Metro have also been studying the desire for the SR-138 corridor to be a safer route for high-capacity goods transport between SR-14 and Interstate 5. Currently the two-line stretch is referred to as ‘blood alley’ because of the fatal accidents that can occur when impatient drivers try to pass with too little clearance for oncoming traffic, often big rig trucks.

Proposed Alternatives

•Alternative 1 stays on, or near, much of the existing SR-138 alignment. It has a six-lane divided freeway west of Gorman Post Road to 300th St. West near Neenach. Access is limited to interchanges. It narrows to a 4-lane divided expressway from 300th St. West to SR-14. There is a loop around Antelope Acres.

•Alternative 2 also has a six-lane divided freeway from I-5 and narrows to a four lane expressway near Neenach, with a “limited access conventional highway” through to SR-14.

•The “TSM” Alternative (Transportation Systems Management) would provide some improvements to the current two-lane SR-138 without adding capacity. “Curve correction” would be built east of Quail Lake near the Ridge Route intersection. Current shoulders would be widened and paved between Gorman Post Road and 60th St. West.

The Process

Los Angeles County Metro is a funding partner for the improvement project. The informational meetings were hosted by Metro and Caltrans, which is the lead agency developing the environmental impact report (EIR) to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and its federal counterpart, NEPA.

The process is in the preliminary engineering and environmental studies phase. The Draft EIR (DEIR) is expected to be released for public comment sometime in March 2016, officials said at the meeting.

Typically the public has 60 to 90 days to review the DEIR and to make written comments for consideration and inclusion in the DEIR. There are public hearings during this phase. If major deficiencies or omissions are noted in public comments, the DEIR may sometimes be withdrawn for improvement, then resubmitted to the public. Another public hearing will be held when the DEIR is submitted for certification by Metro’s Board of Directors.

Photo captions:

Residents flocked to the May 2 Open House at Grace Chapel to review the updated engineering alternatives.

Nursing student Amanda Anderson has lived in the Neenach area for 22 years and has been in a bad accident. She thinks the improvements can make SR-138 safer.

Some of the proposals included loops around Neenach and Antelope Acres (above) to avoid major changes to residents’ properties.

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This is part of the May 15, 2015 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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