CALTRANS TO STUDY ROAD WIDENING; CONSTRUCTION PLAN TO ADD 4 LANES TO HIGHWAY 138.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

As investigators probe the latest bloody Highway 138 crash, Caltrans is beginning environmental studies needed for the highway's long-sought widening.

The State Transportation Improvement Plan has $38.5 million earmarked for widening the predominantly two-lane highway to four lanes between Avenue T and 165th Street East. Caltrans is hoping to begin construction in February 2002 and have the work completed in about two years.

``Ultimately we want two lanes in each direction with left turn pockets from Avenue T to the Highway 18 junction,'' said Joan G. Wood, project manager.

Officials from the state Department of Transportation will conduct an environmental scoping meeting in Littlerock on Wednesday. Scoping meetings are held to take comment from the public on what issues should be examined in the environmental impact report that must be completed before work can begin.

The environmental scoping meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Alpine Elementary School, 8244 Pearblossom Highway.

A cultural and historical resources study is already under way. A biological resources study will be conducted in spring, Wood said.

At the same time the environmental impact report is being prepared, a project report will also be prepared which will have firmer cost estimates on the work. That will tell Caltrans how far eastward from Avenue T they will be able to expand the highway.

``We're hoping it will take us to the Big Rock Wash (near 165th Street East),'' Wood said.

At this time there is no money for a project to replace two bridges that cross the Big Rock Wash. That work is estimated to cost $18 million.

Also unfunded is a project to widen the highway from 165th Street East to the Highway 18 junction. That work is estimated to cost $43 million.

In 1993, Caltrans widened a 1-1/2-mile stretch of Highway 138 from one mile west of Little Rock Creek Bridge to 77th Street East.

That same year, another 1-1/2-mile stretch from just west of 106th Street East to just west of 128th Street East was widened with the addition of passing lanes in each direction and the addition of a 12-foot-wide left-turn median through Pearblossom.

The two-lane highway carries more than 21,000 vehicles a day and is the Antelope Valley's main link to San Bernardino County.

Head-on collisions are frequent on the two-lane highway, caused by passing motorists who venture into the opposite lane. Three to nine people a year die on the highway, officials said.