Four miles of new carpool lanes are slated to open starting Wednesday on Interstate 5 in North County, which transportation officials said are expected to reduce commute times in half during peak travel hours.
The expanded lanes stretch from state Route 78 in Oceanside to Palomar Airport Road in Carlsbad, according to Caltrans and the San Diego Association of Governments.
New southbound lanes will open Wednesday and new northbound lanes are expected in two weeks.
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One chapter of San Diego's largest infrastructure project is finished but the work continues.
"This is part of a much larger project that has been going on for a while. You may recall that previously we opened carpool lanes between Loma Santa Fe and Palomar Airport Road. And also this project is doing lagoon improvements, active transportation improvements as well as double-tracking of the LOSSAN corridor," Caltrans District 11 Director Gustavo Dallarda told NBC 7.
The agencies have been working on this project since 2016, Dallarda said.
"This construction project delivers groundbreaking expanded multimodal capacity to the region, in line with our goals of building a quicker, more equitable, and cleaner transportation system," said Caltrans Director Tony Tavares. "These lanes will encourage more carpooling and increase vehicle occupancy along a major corridor in San Diego's North County."
The new lanes are part of the North Coast Corridor project, which started in 2017 and includes construction of sound walls and improvements to highway, rail, pedestrian, and biking infrastructure.
Officials said the $79 million HOV lane extension is funded through $3.3 million from regional half-cent sales tax SANDAG TransNet, $3.3 million from the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, and more than $72 million in federal funding.
"The completion of these vital HOV lanes is a win for North County," said SANDAG Second Vice Chair and Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner. "Thanks to collaboration of SANDAG and Caltrans, along with the combination of federal, state, and local funding, the completed 13-mile stretch will give carpoolers a safe and reliable option to get where they need to go throughout the North Coast Corridor while reducing emissions."
