Activists in National City and Southeast San Diego are celebrating a $4.5 million state budget allocation to an initiative aimed at reconnecting communities that were divided by freeways.
The funding, which was approved by state lawmakers on Sept. 1 and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 18, will support community outreach, planning and technical studies surrounding the proposed redevelopment of the 43rd Street on and off-ramps to Interstate 805.
The ramps were initially planned to become the start of Highway 252, a project that Caltrans abandoned in the 1980s amid community opposition. In 2015, the city of San Diego adopted a new community plan that called for the ramps’ redevelopment into housing, parks and commercial space…