Transportation planners decided it would be unsafe to allow left turns into the San Clemente Post Office, pictured at left, from a widened Avenida Pico with a new traffic pattern. Vehicles can make a U turn, pictured, to access the post office’s parking lot. (Photo by Fred Swegles; Orange County Register/SCNG)

Motorists turning right onto Avenida Pico from the northbound I-5 off-ramp used to turn into a dedicated lane on Pico. Widening Pico at that location could not accommodate the special lane, officials said. Drivers now turn right into a general-purpose lane. (Photo by Fred Swegles; Orange County Register/SCNG)

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A new center median on Avenida Pico in San Clemente keeps drivers from turning left into the San Clemente Post Office. Officials said left turns would be unsafe, given the new traffic configuration. (Photo by Fred Swegles; Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Avenida Pico widening in San Clemente eliminated left turns from westbound Pico into the San Clemente Post Office and initially eliminated U turns allowing people to access the post office’ parking lot. As the sign at upper right shows, the U turn has been restored. (Photo by Fred Swegles; Orange County Register/SCNG)



Orange County drivers may be wondering if they will face flashing brake lights on southbound I-5 in San Clemente this spring where a 5.7-mile freeway widening will end.

The $230 million widening is targeted for completion by April. It will add a carpool lane in each direction between San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente, producing five lanes In each direction where there used to be four.

The southbound carpool lane will end beyond Avenida Pico, on uphill grade. The traffic impact of that was among topics discussed in an online Orange County Transportation Authority chat on Thursday, Feb. 1.

“We don’t see that as an issue at this time because the traffic volumes in the environmental study didn’t show that,” said Chris Boucly, an OCTA spokesman.

The new carpool lane “will actually end as a carpool lane just about where folks enter the freeway from Pico … just about the top of the southbound on-ramp to I-5 south,” Boucly said.

“It will not disappear as a lane,” he said. “It will simply turn into a general-purpose lane. We will still have five lanes at that point for about another mile or so – just under a mile. Once we hit El Camino Real, the right-hand fifth lane will drop off.”

Asked if the I-5 widening being completed now will be extended from Pico to Orange County’s border with San Diego County at Cristianitos Road, Boucly said a study of options for that stretch is in early stages.

Asked if designers of the I-5 widening considered the possibility of the 241 Toll Road merging with I-5 just south of Pico, Boucly said no.

Orange County’s Transportation Corridor Agency is doing a regional mobility study that includes four potential 241 extension routes, two of them cutting through San Clemente, one of them meeting I-5 south of Pico.

The I-5 widening project pre-dates the TCA’s initiative. Boucly said OCTA is not part of the TCA’s project, and the designated alignment for the 241 when the I-5 widening was conceived ran behind San Clemente.

Some other information OCTA conveyed during the chat: