Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : TRANSPORTATION : N. Tustin Homes Win Out Over Freeway

A plan to alleviate traffic bottlenecks near the junctions of the Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and Garden Grove freeways by uprooting homes in North Tustin for a freeway extension is not a good idea, the Orange County Transportation Commission was told.

The commission’s policy committee voted to remove from consideration five potential freeway connectors that would have required highway engineers to tunnel under North Tustin or remove hundreds of expensive homes. Each of the five connectors would have cost at least $218 million.

Committee members said they believed that the connectors--one of which would have extended the Garden Grove Freeway past its current junction with the Costa Mesa Freeway--were too expensive, too controversial politically and too disruptive to the community to be practical.

And besides, the panel said, studies have shown that such connectors or extensions would not alleviate traffic enough to be worth the trouble they would cause.

Although the full commission is expected to go along with the committee’s recommendation at its July 28 meeting, residents of the area said they were not going to take chances.

To that end, an estimated 500 volunteers were scheduled to walk through neighborhoods during the week to distribute information protesting the plan.