55 Freeway Paving Project to Provide 2 Rush-Hour Lanes

Caltrans is preparing to launch a $6.5-million repaving project on the Costa Mesa Freeway that could provide Orange County’s first rush-hour commuter lanes by early next year, state officials announced Tuesday.

The project, scheduled to begin next week, calls for resurfacing the 55 Freeway along a 13-mile stretch between Bristol Avenue and the Riverside Freeway and restriping to accommodate two new lanes along the freeway median.

The resurfacing is likely to generate some disruption because it will involve closing down entire sections of the freeway in one direction during late-night hours, state officials said. However, Caltrans has restricted construction to between midnight and 5 a.m. on weeknights and between midnight and 9 a.m. on weekends, hours when freeway traffic is relatively light.

The Orange (57) Freeway will provide a convenient detour for most late-night travelers, and surface streets will provide other opportunities for county residents familiar with the alternate routes, Caltrans officials say.

Studies Planned

“I would expect that people who know the area will know how to get around it. There might be some problems with those who are not familiar with the area, but we’re doing it at a time when we expect very little traffic to be out there,” said Caltrans engineer C. K. O’Hara.

Studies over the next several months will determine whether the new lanes to be striped in as part of the project will become the county’s first High Occupancy Vehicle lanes, restricted to buses, car pools and van pools, said David Roper, deputy director for operations in Caltrans’ Los Angeles district.

Controversy over the state’s ill-fated “diamond lane” experiment on the Santa Monica Freeway in 1976 has prompted state officials to take a cautious approach, however. The final decision on whether to restrict the lanes to buses and car pools will be made only if a community advisory committee and the Orange County Transportation Commission approve the plan, Roper said.

“We all know of the sensitivities associated with the Santa Monica project, and let’s face it, those sensitivities were very intense. We recognize that a project of this type is only going to stay on the ground as long as the public and the users of that facility understand it and are willing to let it stay on the ground,” Roper said. “If there is an outcry, the final result of that is probably going to be to terminate the project, and we don’t want to put ourselves in that position.”

Inexpensive Alternative

Orange County transportation officials decided last year to focus on car-pool lanes as an alternative to a large-scale rail transit project to help relieve traffic congestion in the central part of the county, but estimates for installing the new lanes range from $275 million to $640 million, with construction several years away.

This project would provide at least two lanes without the need to pour additional pavement and could be completed by the beginning of the year, Caltrans officials say.

A newly appointed Route 55 Advisory Committee, which held its first meeting earlier this month, will make recommendations later this year to Caltrans and OCTC on whether to make the new lanes available to all traffic or restrict them to buses and car pools.

The committee, headed by Orange Mayor Jim Beam, includes representatives of cities along the Costa Mesa Freeway, the Automobile Club of Southern California, several chambers of commerce, the California Highway Patrol, the Orange County Transit District and the Industrial League of Orange County.

Next month, a private consultant hired by the Transportation Commission will begin surveying regular commuters along the Costa Mesa Freeway to determine how much of a demand--and how much public acceptance--there is for car-pool lanes along the freeway. That survey is expected to be a key factor in the advisory committee’s recommendations.

The Costa Mesa Freeway project, if approved, would not be identical to the unpopular Santa Monica diamond lane project because it would not take existing lanes away and restrict them to car-pool use but would add new lanes for the car pools, Roper said.

Lanes Restored

(Caltrans restored the Santa Monica diamond lanes to regular use as a result of a lawsuit and massive public opposition to the project.)

Because the car-pool lanes would only be needed during rush-hour traffic and because they would be constructed along the freeway median, state officials are tentatively proposing to permit their use only during peak hours, allowing their use as emergency shoulders “during those critical nighttime hours and high-speed hours when the safety of that shoulder is so important,” Roper said.

However, it will be up to the committee to make recommendations on hours of operation. Because the Costa Mesa Freeway has an afternoon rush-hour that appears to begin during the early afternoon hours, officials might have to take that into account in designating car-pool lane hours, he said.

Demonstration Project

State officials are preparing to launch a car-pool lane demonstration project next month along the Artesia Freeway, between Central Avenue and the San Gabriel River Freeway, that will provide Orange County officials with additional information before committing themselves to a project in their own area, he added.

The Costa Mesa Freeway resurfacing project calls for laying a new 4-inch-thick asphalt surface on the freeway north of 4th Street and smoothing out the existing pavement south to Bristol. The 13-mile freeway stretch carries about 150,000 cars a day, only slightly fewer than the Santa Ana Freeway, according to Caltrans estimates.

A similar resurfacing project was completed on the Santa Ana Freeway last year with minimal disruption, O’Hara said. Construction on the Costa Mesa Freeway project, which also includes installation of a concrete median barrier to replace the existing metal guard rail, should be completed by the end of the year.