Extension of Car-Pool-Lane Trial Is Likely

A trial period for embattled car pool lanes on the Costa Mesa Freeway probably will continue for nine months, state transportation officials said Tuesday.

With the 90-day experiment set to expire this month, Caltrans and Orange County Transportation Commission staff members say they need the additional time to refine and more thoroughly evaluate the project.

They also disclosed on Tuesday that the California Highway Patrol has agreed to step up enforcement of car-pool-lane rules. And they released figures showing that travel times along the route are better than they were during the holiday season but still lag behind the first few weeks’ experience last November.

Caltrans Deputy Director David Roper said of the proposed nine-month extension: “We always felt that the experiment should be for a full year, so of course we would welcome such a decision.”

Action Due on March 10

County transportation commissioners will consider the extension at their March 10 meeting. Commissioner James H. Beam, mayor of Orange, said he is confident that the extension will be approved. Caltrans, which has the final say, has agreed to abide by the commission’s decision.

Joe Catron, a critic of the new lanes and chairman of Drivers for Highway Safety, said Tuesday that his group opposes the extension. “I don’t think a year’s experiment will prove much more than a 90-day trial,” he said. “It will just mean that more drivers will face continued congestion in the regular lanes that much longer.”

Catron and other critics contend that the new lanes should be opened to all traffic to reduce congestion for more drivers, “not just a select few.” They also argue that the new lanes invite potentially unsafe lane changes.

Catron and his group have been circulating petitions, ribbons and literature at freeway off-ramps. They also plan a noon rally at a park near John Wayne Airport next Tuesday.

Lanes to Be Restriped

But even before the Transportation Commission votes on the trial period extension, Roper said, his agency will restripe the lanes in blue, replacing the double yellow lines that separate the car-pool lanes from other traffic. Caltrans also will install three rows of raised, reflectorized dots and a single row of nine-inch-high flexible pylons to discourage commuters from entering and leaving the lanes illegally, and will lengthen the stretches for legal lane changes.

Roper said CHP Capt. C.A. Lynd in Santa Ana has agreed to “use overtime to put more officers” on the 11-mile stretch of car-pool lanes, both southbound and northbound, between the San Diego and Riverside freeways.

“He found some overtime money somewhere, so he’s going to do this in-house without any extra funding,” Roper said. Lynd was attending meetings and was unavailable Tuesday.

But Catron said ticketing more drivers will increase congestion, because CHP officers slow traffic as they herd vehicles across three lanes to the shoulder.

Meanwhile, Caltrans Director Leo J. Trombatore reiterated his support for the car-pool lanes in a letter to Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who last month asked Trombatore to end the project on the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Nestande, chairman of the California Transportation Commission, had claimed that the lanes are a “severe safety hazard” and were not being used enough.

Trombatore’s reply, copies of which circulated among county officials Tuesday, challenged Nestande to meet with Caltrans officials to clear up any misunderstandings about the car-pool lanes.

“We urgently request your support,” Trombatore’s letter stated. Traffic management strategies such as car-pool lanes “must facilitate changes in commuter behavior,” the letter added.

Nestande was unavailable for comment.

The proposed trial-run extension, lane modifications and increased enforcement were discussed Tuesday during meetings of two OCTC subcommittees.

At one meeting, Catron questioned Caltrans statistics showing that more people are getting to their destinations faster than before.

Roper answered that “in every case where we have allowed mixed use of a car-pool lane, the lane has filled up and congestion has gone back to where it was before the new lane was built.”

Representatives from Fluor Corp., Rockwell International Corp. and several other companies said they endorse continuation of the project and argued that new car pools formed to take advantage of them would disappear if all vehicles were allowed into the special lanes.

‘Three Months Not Enough’

Beam, who insisted on a 90-day trial in negotiations with Caltrans last year, now is the chief proponent of a nine-month extension.

Beam said he had insisted on the 90-day limit because he believed the project needed a “tight rein.” But, he said Tuesday, “so far the lane looks like it’s working, and three months is not long enough to evaluate the long-range picture.”

Figures released by Caltrans and the county Transportation Commission staff Tuesday showed that travel times for the car-pool lanes averaged 25 minutes recently, compared to 28 minutes during the holiday shopping season, 15 minutes during the first few weeks of operation in November and 35 minutes before the new lanes were introduced.

Roper said Tuesday that such results are encouraging but that it may take two years or more before a substantial number of commuters change their driving habits and take full advantage of the car-pool lanes.