Background

The HDC was originally proposed in the 1970s as a metropolitan by-pass for trucks to alleviate truck traffic in the Los Angeles Basin and to facilitate truck movement from Mexico to points north and east. In 2004, the Metro Board adopted the North County Combined Highway Corridor Study that recommended strategies for addressing the high volume of truck traffic traveling north and south on the I-5, SR-14 and SR-138 Freeways. The HDC was one of the preferred strategy improvements for some of the following reasons:  

• The High Desert communities in the northern Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties are some of the fastest growing subregions in Southern California
• Both counties have experienced tremendous growth and demographic changes in the last 20 years
• The rapid growth has caused travel demands to exceed roadway capacity resulting in deteriorating east-west travel speeds for an area that is served primarily by two-lane rural highways

In April 2010, the Metro Board authorized entry into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the implementation of the HDC Project. Metro is working on an MOU with the High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Authority (HDCJPA), the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG), the State of California represented by the Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Districts 7 and 8, the County of Los Angeles and the County of San Bernardino represented by their respective Departments of Public Works, and the Cities of Lancaster, Palmdale, Victorville, Adelanto and the town of Apple Valley for the implementation of the HDC. Caltrans will serve as the lead agency for the environmental clearance.