‘Super Street,’ Freeway-Widening Financing, Commuter Lanes for the 405 : New OCTC Budget Includes 3 Major Projects

Efforts to turn Beach Boulevard into a 19.5-mile “super street,” develop a financing plan for widening the Santa Ana Freeway and install commuter lanes along the San Diego Freeway are key elements in the $2.18-million operating budget for 1986-87 adopted Monday by the Orange County Transportation Commission.

The new budget represents a slight increase above this year’s $2.15-million budget and includes higher maintenance, salary and professional service costs.

The eight-member commission employs 23 people, oversees transportation projects and develops spending priorities. For example, about $104 million of $322 million spent on transportation projects in the county went through the commission during the 1984-85 fiscal year, the last period for which figures were available.

The new budget adopted without dissent Monday includes an immediate 4.75% pay increase for commission staff members, an extra 1.75% raise for clerical staff in January and an 8% salary boost for commission Executive Director Stan Oftelie, who will make $77,320.

The $24-million Beach Boulevard “super street” project involves widening the street, coordinating traffic signals and establishing turnouts so that buses can stop without blocking traffic. Plans to construct boulevard overpasses at La Palma and Warner avenues have been dropped because of opposition in Buena Park and Huntington Beach. An overpass at Imperial Highway has been deferred after a study determined that it will not be needed for another 15 years.

During the next 12 months, the commission hopes to complete plans for widening the Santa Ana Freeway from its juncture with the San Diego Freeway north to the 605 Freeway and improving nearby arterial streets. A major hurdle facing the commission is to find a method to finance the mammoth $1-billion undertaking, which might include the use of developer fees and benefit assessment districts.

Meanwhile, a final analysis of the car-pool lane experiment on the Costa Mesa Freeway is expected to generate commission support for such lanes on the San Diego Freeway.

The California Department of Transportation has already adopted plans for such lanes, and a technical advisory committee that reports to the county commission has approved the lanes.

The current experiment on the Costa Mesa Freeway is dogged by controversy over conflicting claims that the special lanes have reduced accident rates on the one hand or increased them on the other.

For example, a recent Caltrans report showed that the weekly accident rate for the six months of the experiment was 23, compared to 25 during a seven-week period before the commuter lanes were opened.

Drivers for Highway Safety, a citizens’ group critical of the lanes, has claimed that the accident rate has increased 77% over that of a three-year period before the lanes were built.

New figures circulated among some state and local transportation officials Monday suggested that there has been a 40% increase in accidents for the first three months of this year compared to the first three months of 1985, but officials said a full analysis involving annual comparisons based on accidents per million vehicle miles traveled is necessary and will not be completed for several months.