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By Miriam Raftery
August 11, 2016 (Jamul) — On August 5th, a head-on crash between a big-rig and three other vehicles at the steel bridge on State Route 94 near Jamacha shut down the highway for several hours. A truck lost a rear axle. One car flipped, another partially over the side,” says Kim Hamilton, Deerhorn Valley Antler editor, who cancelled family dinner plans due to the delay. ”Cars were going the wrong way, no law enforcement,” she told ECM.
Hamilton and other residents of rural towns reliant on SR 94 as their primary access and exit route are livid over what they say was inadequate notice over the crash—the latest in a long string of bad accidents on the route.
The incident did appear on the California Highway incident webpage, which stated that a SIG Alert was issued at 1:35 p.m. But the CHP did not issue a Tweet or e-mail alert, and Cal Trans’ SIG ALERT site never listed the accident, according to Hamilton. ECM follows the CHP and Cal Trans on Twitter and did not receive any alerts on this accident.
Just one day later, on August 6, a two-car crash at a dip on 94 near Melody Road, where road workers had been pouring cement and grading was underway near the new casino site, also forced residents to take very long detours, sometimes up to an hour.
The 10-mile stretch of SR 94 from Rancho San Diego to Otay Lakes Road reportedly has 5 ½ times the average number of traffic fatalities compared to the County’s average.
ECM has reported on many complaints by residents recently on the highway’s high rate of accidents and long delays due to not only crashes, but also back-ups at a Border checkpoint, high school traffic, road work and construction delays, and fears that such issues will be exacerbated once a casino opens soon in Jamul. Here are links to some of our past stories:
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/residents-seek-answers-after-10-hour-shutdown-highway-94
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/jamul-community-meeting-aug-5-discus-highway-94-mitigation
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/fatality-crash-raises-concerns-over-roadwork-highway-94
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/residents-voice-concerns-over-checkpoint-delays-highway-94
While signage was posted for some incidents and some mitigation plans such as adding signals and widening some areas of roadway were approved as casino mitigation, residents have noted that those changes are not yet completed on the highway, which has one of the county’s highest fatality rates.
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