Traffic study called biased
provements to the roads in order to be able to go forward with the project, at no cost to the taxpayers,” Beyer said.
Plans show that Chase Avenue will be re-striped to create a longer dedicated right-turn lane when leaving the school and space to accommodate a westbound left-turn lane into the site. Access to the school site would be provided by a oneway circulation driveway — two driveways total — connecting to Chase.
Members of the community planning group and SOS2 question the plan’s compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act and whether a more detailed environmental impact report should have been prepared rather than the Mitigated Negative Declaration that was approved.
“The proposed Liberty Charter High School project has come before our elected Valle de Oro Community Planning Board four times, most recently on Dec. 1,” said Stephen Bickley, a member of the Valle de Oro group’s subcommittee on the high school.
“Each time we have unanimously voted against the project for some of the following reasons: It does nothing to serve our constituents; it would exacerbate an already serious traffic area making it even less safe; (and) a public high school would require an (environmental impact report) as we have requested.”
The SOS2 group asserts that f lawed and outdated data was used by a biased traffic study preparer — the husband of a Literacy First teacher whose children attend their schools — that did not give a complete picture of the school’s anticipated adverse impact on traffic, parking and safety.
While Literacy First had to account for increased traffic coming to the area by making changes to the roads, Marisa Janine-Page, an attorney and spokeswoman for the SOS2 group, said the plans for fixes to the streets are not enough.
SOS2 hired an outside firm to do its own traffic surveying, and compiled what Page said are accurate and up-to-date traffic statistics. The group plans to share the data with the Board of Supervisors at the hearing.
“SOS2 retained a traffic engineer expert who did a peer review of the Liberty Charter High School traffic study,” Page said. “It is extremely revealing on how the traffic study manipulated data by cherry-picking from outdated manuals and Institute of Transportation Engineers and SANDAG data. The peer review identifies serious CEQA and procedural violations.”