East County commuters got their first glimpse of a proposed project to redesign a 6-mile stretch of state Route 52 on Thursday. With the goal of improving longstanding traffic issues, Caltrans is studying potential improvements to SR-52 in the Tierrasanta and Santee area between Interstate 15 and st ate Route 125, including the Mast Boulevard Interchange. The project is in collaboration with the San Diego Association of Governments and the City of Santee. “We started raising questions for this project in 2019, when we formed the Highway 52 Coalition,” Santee Mayor John Minto said. “Now what we have to do is put our nose to the grindstone and get the rest of things done.” The project, which is the early stage, proposes the addition of managed lanes, addressing bottlenecks and a relocated bike path. The specific proposals include adding a westbound managed lane from Mast Boulevard to Santo Road; relocating the bike bath to the south side of SR-52; increasing westbound SR-52 from two lanes to three lanes from state Route 125 to Mast Boulevard; and increasing eastbound SR-52 from two lanes to three lanes from Mast Boulevard to east of the San Diego River bridge. The environmental planning portion just started and will last through Fall 2028. The designing stage is planned to last about two years, with construction to start in 2031 and reach completion by 2034. Caltrans estimated the environmental and design phases will cost $20.5 million. That includes $9.5 million in federal funds, $3 million from the state, $3 million in Transnet funds and $5 million from the City of Santee. To kickstart the public scoping period, which will last through January 2026, Caltrans held a meeting at Santee City Hall Thursday. Attendees heard about the proposal from project team members and submitted formal comments that were collected as part of the environmental drafting period. “We look at the comments and group them together for commonality,” said Karen Jewel, who is the District 11 Project Corridor Director for Caltrans. “We want that input and we want to make sure that the project is made with that in mind.” Lakeside resident Jessica Duarte said she spends most of her commute to work on the SR-52, which takes around two hours round-trip on a day-to-day basis. She described her daily commute as “quite miserable” but said she was glad to see there are steps being taken to improve the traffic congestion. Caltrans’ proposed improvements are a “mixed bag,” Duarte said, but she was happy the plans included adding another lane westbound and eastbound. Adding a managed lane could help, she continued, but said it depends on the type of road that would be. An HOV or toll road would be something she opposes, but she said she is open to other types of managed roads. “A managed lane with a moving barrier would be a great idea, I’ve seen that work on the Coronado bridge and on Interstate 15,” Duarte said. “But I wonder who will pay for a proposal like that.” Jewel said Caltrans is considering every type of managed lane in their proposal and will make a conclusion based on traffic studies. For example, she said the agency will conduct a truck study to determine if a truck-only lane could allow more space for commuters on the road. The plan to add a third lane both westbound and eastbound would have to include widening the bridge near Mast Boulevard, Duarte said. “I looked as I was crossing through that area in the morning, and I thought, ‘There’s no room to put a third lane here safely,’” Duarte said. “The majority of accidents on the SR-52 in the morning happen right in that area. If you take away any shoulder space, that only ties up traffic further.” Caltrans Transportation Engineer Alexander Wood said the agency is considering a variety of factors in their plan to add another lane, including expanding the bridge. Duarte said she is worried about how long it will take to complete the project, considering East County is developing and will continue to in the next 10 years. “The ideas, in theory, are great,” Duarte said. “I don’t know if they solve a lot of the problems, especially if Fanita Ranch is going to be added in Santee.” Fanita Ranch is a proposed 3,000 home development. Rod Streeper is a lifelong East County resident who rides his bike on a daily basis. He said the road improvement proposals were “everything he was hoping it would be” and he was happy that bikers were considered in the planning process. “Putting a bike lane in period is always better than not, but if you’re planning a project from scratch, which is what they are doing here,” Streeper said. “There are low-costs ways of improving it for individual types of commuters, and so we’re just asking that the bikes be considered in that.” He spent several minutes writing out his formal requests to Caltrans. He said he asked for the agency to consider installing the safest form of shared lines for bicyclists, such as a paved shoulder. “This is really a testament to this community project working,” Streeper said. “It’s frustrating, it’s slow, but it’s a necessary process.” ...read more read less