The engineeers and professional design consultants at AECOM Technical Services, Inc. will give the city reports on the road line and environmental safeguards needed to widen the Otay truck route that runs along the north border fence in Otay Mesa. Councilmembers, at their Tuesday, January 31 meeting, approved an agreement to pay the consulting company 1.6 million dollars to do the early stage design work for Phase IV in the project.
Subcontractors now can take on the work handed out by AECOM. Estrada Land Planning is one of the subcontractors the consultant will use.
Southbound traffic does not have a complete road system in the Otay Mesa community needed for trucks to line up along the border crossing and drive down to Tijuana and locations in Baja without running into congestion that forces long and costly waits at the border point of entry. But, quicker crossings can be made without as big a short term change on the border map.
Members of the East Otay Mesa Property Owners Asssociation asked Council President Tony Young to stop the border fence road project and suggested that improvements on the short distance on La Media Road heavily used by southbound truckers near the border that has deteriorated will make crossing at the Otay Mesa point of entry easier until SR-11 is built at the Otay Mesa II point of entry. The SR-11 project that has received a presidential permit will make the costly road widening unnecessary, the members said in a mid-January letter.
The council decided to take the opportunity to shorten border travel times with AECOM that the city had already made a deal on.
Work on building an improved road that has 2 lanes from Britannia Boulevard to La Media and 3 lanes from La Media to Drucker Lane can move ahead now that the city council decided to fund the work on the project in District 8, David Alvarez's district, with the grant given by the Federal Highway Administration and TransNet money transferred from earlier project funds. The design studies will also inform the city on the impact the road improvement that will be done from Bristow Court to the north border fence and along the fence on the nearby communities. Consultants will help the city plan for any ends to current land uses and necessary relocations.
The company will meet with both Caltrans and the highway administration on the project.
AECOM will study traffic circulation along the length of the road.
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