California State Route 76
State Route 76 is a state highway long in the U.S. state of California. It is a much used east–west route in the North County region of San Diego County that begins in Oceanside near Interstate 5 and continues east. The highway is a major route through the region, passing through the community of Bonsall and providing access to Fallbrook. East of the junction with I-15, SR 76 goes through Pala and Pauma Valley before terminating at SR 79.
A route along the corridor has existed since the early 20th century, as has the bridge over the San Luis Rey River near Bonsall. The route was added to the state highway system in 1933, and was officially designated by the California State Legislature as SR 76 in the 1964 state highway renumbering. The section of the highway through Oceanside and Bonsall is mostly a four-lane expressway; east of I-15, the roadway is mostly a two-lane highway. Originally, the entire highway was two lanes wide; west of Bonsall, the route was widened in stages, after decades of funding shortages, planning, and litigation. The California Department of Transportation maintained plans to expand the entire length of the highway west of I-15 to an expressway, and as of May 2017, construction between Bonsall and I-15 was complete.
Route description
The roadway carrying the SR 76 designation begins at County Route S21 in Oceanside, although Caltrans does not consider the road west of I-5 to be part of the route, and it is not in the legal definition. There is soon an interchange with I-5, after which SR 76 becomes a four-lane expressway known as the San Luis Rey Mission Expressway. From I-5 to Mission Avenue, the highway parallels the San Luis Rey River until it passes by the Oceanside Municipal Airport. During this stretch, SR 76 intersects Loretta Street, Canyon Drive, Benet Road, Airport Road, and Foussat Road. There are two overpasses: one over Mission Avenue, and one over El Camino Real, before the road intersects Douglas Drive, the main road to the San Luis Rey gate of Camp Pendleton. After an intersection with Rancho Del Oro Road, SR 76 passes over Mission Avenue again before intersecting with Old Grove Road, Frazee Road, a turnoff into the Towne Center North shopping center, and College Boulevard.As it enters rural Oceanside, SR 76 intersects with North Santa Fe Avenue, Guajome Lake Road, and Melrose Drive. SR 76 intersects the southern segment of CR S13, known as East Vista Way, and passes over the San Luis Rey River on roughly parallel bridges before an intersection at North River Road. The highway passes through Bonsall, intersecting Via Montellano, Olive Hill Road, and Throughbred Lane. SR 76 then meets the northern segment of CR S13, known as South Mission Road, while heading north into Fallbrook; SR 76 is the primary road connecting the two portions of CR S13. Here, SR 76 becomes known as Pala Road. It intersects Via Monserate and Gird Road south of Fallbrook before crossing the former routing of US 395 and the current routing of I-15 in the community of Pala Mesa Village.
SR 76 then goes through Pala and the Pala Indian Reservation, providing access to the Pala Casino and intersecting CR S16, the turnoff to the Pala Mission and Temecula. Continuing to parallel the San Luis Rey River, SR 76 passes by the Wilderness Gardens County Park before entering the community of Pauma Valley and meeting the southern terminus of CR S7, a dirt road leading into Palomar Mountain State Park. SR 76 intersects the southern leg of CR S6, leading to Valley Center and Escondido. East of the small Yuima Indian Reservation, it then encounters the northern leg of CR S6, the southern approach to the Palomar Observatory and Palomar Mountain State Park, as well as the community of La Jolla Amago. It then briefly passes through the Cleveland National Forest and meets the eastern terminus of CR S7, the eastern approach to Palomar Mountain. SR 76 then passes along the shores of Lake Henshaw before terminating at the intersection with SR 79 at Morettis Junction, southeast of Lake Henshaw.
From I-5 to I-15, SR 76 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and west of Bonsall is part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. SR 76 is legally eligible to be included in the State Scenic Highway System, but it is not officially designated as a scenic highway by the California Department of Transportation. The part of the highway from the western terminus to Douglas Drive is also named for Tony Zeppetella, an Oceanside police officer killed while on duty performing a traffic stop in 2003. In 2018, SR 76 had an annual average daily traffic of 1,950 between East Palomar Road and the eastern terminus at SR 79, and 55,000 between I-5 and Loretta Street in Oceanside, the latter of which was the highest AADT for the highway.
History
The road through the San Luis Rey Valley was planned as early as 1889 and was constructed during the early 20th century. It was added to the state highway system in 1933, while the condition of the highway continued to improve. The San Luis Rey Mission Expressway was eventually constructed during the 1990s and 2000s, and efforts to extend the expressway east to I-15 were completed during the 2010s.Original road
Plans by the City of Oceanside for a road east through the San Luis Rey Valley to Fallbrook date from June 1889, and included a bridge over the San Luis Rey River. Construction on the bridge over the river at Bonsall had commenced by October 1906, and the bridge was to be long. In November, the road to the bridge was under construction; originally, the bridge was to serve the road from Escondido to Temecula. A survey was commissioned in 1908 to replace the road along the south bank of the river with one along the north bank to Pala, as the former was sandy and difficult for travel. State funding issues for the Pala road by May 1912 that prevented completion, though the planned road had been surveyed from Bonsall, where it met with the Escondido road, to Oceanside.Flooding in January 1916 resulted in the closing of the pre-existing road between Bonsall and Pala; part of it reopened in October. Nevertheless, of the road between Pauma Valley and Pala did not reopen for two years. Meanwhile, a road from Pala to Warner Springs neared completion in March 1918, though a bridge would be necessary for the road to be usable during the winter months. By mid-1921, plans were underway to pave Mission Avenue through the Oceanside city limits. The first east from Oceanside were paved by November 1924. The Bonsall Bridge over the San Luis Rey River was completed in 1925, and opened in 1926 as the county's largest bridge at the time; it served as part of the road from San Diego to Elsinore. The Pala road was constructed by 1930, although it was not paved east of Pala.
The road that extended from US 101 in Oceanside all the way to SR 79 near Lake Henshaw was originally added to the state highway system in 1933, but was not designated as legislative Route 195 until 1935. By 1936, US 395 was signed along what would become SR 76 through Bonsall, as part of the route between Elsinore and San Diego. In 1943, work began on widening the approaches to the Bonsall bridge. US 395 had been shifted east away from Bonsall by 1949. SR 76 was signed by 1954. During the 1964 state highway renumbering, Route 195 was legally redesignated as State Route 76; at that time, the legal definition was updated to reflect the new designation of I-5, replacing US 101.
Delays and postponement
The original idea for constructing a replacement for Mission Avenue dates from 1950. By 1961, there were plans to make SR 76 a freeway from Oceanside to Fallbrook Road, and an expressway from there to US 395. The following year, the new Highway 76 Association formed a committee to promote the upgrade of the road into Pauma Valley. In 1963, more specific plans were proposed by the Highway Development Association initiative, including making the portions from Foussat Road and the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia and from Vista Way to Mission Road an expressway, and widening the part of the highway in Oceanside. In 1964, the state allocated funds for the widening of SR 76 to four lanes in Oceanside, and in October 1965, the first portion of the widening from Carey Road to Frontier Drive entered the bidding phase. The next part of the widening entered the bidding phase in December 1968, and extended from Frontier Drive to near the Mission.Caltrans engineer Jacob Dekema announced in April 1969 that construction on SR 76 and the nearby SR 78 between I-5 and US 395 would be delayed until work on I-5 and US 395 was underway, or at least until 1976. Nevertheless, a widening project was commissioned in 1970 between Pauma Reservation Road and Cole Grade Road, well east of US 395. The next year, construction began on a new interchange between the future routing of SR 76 and I-5, near Oceanside Harbor and Camp Del Mar in Camp Pendleton. The expansion of SR 76 appeared on the Comprehensive Planning Organization regional government plan in late 1974. At that time, there was an effort by the City of Oceanside to have SR 76 included as a scenic highway, but SR 76 has not been included in the system. The Chamber of Commerce decided to continue efforts to have SR 76 expanded at the end of 1974.
In January 1975, Caltrans presented plans to realign SR 76 away from Mission Avenue and move it to the south side of the San Luis Rey River from I-5 to Frontier Drive. One member of the Tri-Cities Taxpayers' League suggested that the freeway be built on the northern side of the river, and follow the river all the way east to I-15. Following concerns that the project would be cancelled due to lack of state funding, the California Highway Commission stated that the proposal was still being considered. The City of Oceanside raised concerns about the congestion on Mission Avenue, as well as the realignment being a part of the city master plan. After this, at the start of the next year, the CHC decided to keep the proposal, though there were concerns that construction would be delayed due to the state financial crisis. Caltrans stated a few months later that SR 76 would be delayed because of the funding issues and the relatively low levels of traffic that would not support building a freeway. Following this, State Senator John Stull alleged that Caltrans head Adriana Gianturco was purposefully delaying the project by delaying the release of the environmental impact report. A petition drive began soon after, supported by many North County leaders, with the exception of Bonsall due to concerns about a full freeway running through the community.
From 1974 to 1977, Oceanside police kept track of over 1,000 accidents that occurred along SR 76. A citizen action group known as Concerned Citizens for Highway 76 formed soon after. Caltrans began holding hearings again in 1979, proposing the building of an expressway as opposed to a freeway or to widening Mission Avenue. At one hearing, local officials criticized the delay, while others criticized the routing, the decision to build an expressway instead of a freeway, and building a route through an environmentally sensitive area. In May 1980, the state Assembly Transportation Committee approved a resolution that requested an answer from the governor at the time, Jerry Brown, and Caltrans as to why certain projects, including SR 76, had not been started.
In the meantime, the Oceanside Development Agency recommended that the new highway be extended west to Pacific Street to aid in redeveloping the downtown area. The San Diego Regional Coastal Commission disagreed with constructing the highway, among other development proposals for downtown Oceanside, due to concerns about destroying habitat along the river and the marsh areas. Soon after, in October 1980, the California Coastal Commission recommended removing the realignment of the freeway from plans entirely, on environmental grounds.