City’s big grant to improve main road

Canyon Lake was selected recently by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) as its recipient of a $1.2 million grant to improve the safety of Railroad Canyon Road. The funding will be used for significant safety improvements along the main thoroughfare, including installing roadway lighting, roadway enhancements and pedestrian crossings.

“Railroad Canyon Road is a busy, regional corridor that runs right through the middle of our city,” City of Canyon Lake Mayor Jeremy Smith said. “We are beyond grateful to the state to now be able to greatly improve the overall safety along this critical roadway.”

The city will be using the money to kick off its efforts to implement key recommendations from the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), the arm of CalTrans which issued the grant. These include installing roadway lighting, retro-reflective signal plates, median barriers, chevron signs, and warning devices.

To improve pedestrian crossings along Railroad Canyon Road, the city will install protected left-turns and new crosswalks.

“Public safety is our number one priority,” Jeremy said. “This is one of many efforts we are pursuing to secure much-needed funding and regional support to address Railroad Canyon Road.”

The city said it will also be exploring implementing sobriety checkpoints along the road, high-visibility enforcement programs and the production of educational materials.

Railroad Canyon Road runs for miles from the City of Lake Elsinore to the City of Menifee. However, the City of Canyon Lake is only responsible for Railroad Canyon Road from just south of Skylink Drive to approximately 0.3 miles west of Goetz Road.

A year ago, the city completed a Local Road Safety Plan which qualified the city for the grant. The plan estimated that there were approximately 80 traffic collisions along the city‘s segment of Railroad Canyon Road from 2015 to 2021. Of these, nine resulted in fatalities or severe injuries.

The four most-common collision types were Rear End (31%), Hit Object (23%), Broadside (18%), and Sideswipe (13%).

To fund the aspects in the city’s plan, it needs to meet established deadlines. The city must allocate its preliminary engineering plans by Dec. 31, its construction phase by March 31, 2026, and complete and close out the project by March 31, 2028, at the latest.

The city said it is eager to get started and intends to move forward with improvements as soon as possible.