Avenues to Ease Traffic Load

Attention in recent years has been focused on proposed new transportation corridors to ease traffic congestion and meet burgeoning road needs in Orange County’s southeastern area--its last frontier of residential growth. Almost overlooked in all the planning for the San Joaquin, Foothill and Eastern corridors was the county’s traffic-choked, already developed and redeveloping central area. Almost, but not quite.

In the central part of the county, it’s not a question of building new freeways. Most areas are so heavily developed that route acquisition and the displacement of businesses and residences would demand an unacceptable cost. Instead, the problem is fine-tuning the road system to complete what has already been envisioned or planned.

Two projects are now the subject of serious planning. They are the extension of the Orange (Route 57) Freeway and the alternate use as a roadway of a former railroad right of way originally acquired by the Orange County Transit District for a light-rail transit line. Completion of those projects would benefit motorists, merchants, business firms and residents alike.

One of the major problems that tarnishes Orange County’s image as an ideal community in which to live and work is the freeway congestion that approaches gridlock in many areas as commuters jam onto the freeways. The county’s freeway system is overloaded.

As Dr. Roger B. Selbert of Security Pacific Bank’s futures research division recently noted, there are only 134 miles of freeway in the county. That amounts to only 2.5% of the county’s 5,339 total road miles. Yet about half the mileage being driven is on the freeways. With only about 67 miles of freeway per million residents, Orange County is far behind most other urban areas. San Diego, for example, has nearly twice that total.

One of the serious deficiencies in the county’s freeway system is the lack of a major north-south route in central Orange County. Motorists going from the Anaheim-Fullerton area toward the John Wayne Airport, South Coast Plaza or the beach area must travel the overcrowded Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways, or the traffic-choked surface streets, when they reach the end of the Orange Freeway.

Extending the Orange Freeway to the San Diego Freeway and joining them near the mouth of the Santa Ana River has been discussed for years. But costs and displacement problems have limited action to just that--talk. A new study nearing conclusion, however, offers new hope of finally extending the Orange Freeway by tying the extension to the Santa Ana River flood control project now before Congress and possibly elevating the traffic lanes on piers built into the river bed. Most of the county’s heaviest employment, recreation and population are located near the proposed route, which would handle about 50% of the county’s anticipated north-south freeway traffic, according to one study.

The other corridor under strong consideration would run between Stanton and Santa Ana. It was originally planned as a rail line, but the overwhelming defeat of Proposition A in 1984 has prompted Transit District officials to consider trying to serve the same travelers by building a combination expressway/busway instead of letting its $15-million investment lie unused.

Both approaches are worth pursuing. The county must have a balanced transportation system that provides adequate roads for private vehicles and public transit. The road system must be balanced geographically, too, serving the already developed and heavily populated central county area as well as the new frontiers to the south.