Riverside County transportation officials have settled on a permanent name for the long-planned north-south expressway meant to connect San Jacinto and Winchester, christening it the San Jacinto Valley Expressway after residents weighed in on a slate of options over the summer. The four-lane corridor is projected to cost roughly $1 billion and span 12 miles, but despite the new name, officials have not announced a groundbreaking date, and construction is still likely more than a year away.
Decades in the Making
The naming decision caps more than two decades of environmental studies, surveys, engineering work and design drafts, according to MyNewsLA.com. The corridor was long known informally as the Highway 79 Realignment Project, a label tied to its original conception as a Caltrans state route. That changed when the roadway was converted into a County of Riverside facility, which is what prompted the agency to seek a more locally resonant name, according to the Riverside County Transportation Commission.
The San Jacinto Valley Expressway title was officially approved after a special renaming panel of elected officials and community leaders unanimously recommended it, drawing on thousands of public survey responses, per RCTC. Residents had also voted on alternatives including Hemecinto Expressway, Heritage Expressway and Pleasant Valley Expressway before the agency settled on its final pick. RCTC reported that the official name was selected after public surveys conducted over the summer.
A Route Through Growing Suburbs
Formal environmental review for the corridor began with a public scoping meeting back in 2004, and the project's formal Environmental Document wasn't approved until December 2016, the agency's records show. The expressway is designed to connect Domenigoni Parkway in San Jacinto to Gilman Springs Road in Winchester, with Gilman Springs Road sitting west of Diamond Valley Lake. The four-lane road will intersect Highway 74 near Homeland and will formally become part of the state highway system once built.
RCTC has divided the 12-mile corridor into three buildable, phased segments: Segment 1 running from Sanderson Avenue to Florida Avenue, Segment 2 from Florida Avenue to Simpson Road, and Segment 3 from Simpson Road to Newport Road. Final design and engineering work on Segment 3, a 2-mile limited-access stretch in Winchester, isn't expected to wrap up until 2028, meaning the southernmost portion of the project is still years from breaking ground.
Riverside County land-use documents tie the expressway directly to projected growth, establishing the four-lane road as a core circulation necessity to accommodate major housing developments and population expansion under the Winchester Community Plan, according to the Riverside County Planning Department. Plans also call for a dedicated 35-foot-wide corridor running alongside the four travel lanes, featuring a multipurpose trail, wildlife crossings and potential Bus Rapid Transit features designed to strengthen the project's competitiveness for grant funding.
The Billion-Dollar Question
Money remains the biggest obstacle standing between the newly named expressway and an actual groundbreaking. In August 2025, RCTC awarded a contract for an Innovative Financing Feasibility Study to explore alternative funding sources and delivery models for the project, which carries an estimated price tag of $1.1 billion. No construction start date has been announced, and it will likely be more than a year before officials even name one.
The funding gap is not unique to this corridor. RCTC secured a $25 million federal BUILD grant in August for a separate $178 million SR-91 expansion project in Corona, a deal Hoodline previously reported illustrates the agency's reliance on competitive federal grants to advance major capital projects. The agency is likely hoping for similar luck as it seeks a path to building the San Jacinto Valley Expressway.
Regional Pressure for Safer Roads
The push for improved north-south mobility in the valley comes as RCTC pursues other major roadway work nearby. In June, the agency broke ground on the $184 million Mid County Parkway Ramona Expressway overhaul, expanding an 8.6-mile stretch between Rider Street and Warren Road in an effort to reduce high collision rates. That corridor has drawn renewed scrutiny after a string of fatal crashes, including a collision last week that killed a 54-year-old Hemet man, as Hoodline detailed in its report on the San Jacinto crash, and a pedestrian death in September that marked the third fatal crash on the Perris Expressway corridor since July.
Officials describe the San Jacinto Valley Expressway as being in the final planning stages, per RCTC, though the project will still require multiple phases of construction once funding and design work are complete. For residents of Hemet, San Jacinto and Winchester watching the valley's population grow, the new name is a milestone, but the road itself remains a long way from asphalt.
