Travel on I-5 ‘Sobering’ : Freeway Agency Chief Gets in the Thick of It

The new executive director of two agencies set up to build new freeways in Orange County got a firsthand taste of the traffic problems he will face Monday on his first day on the job.

John Meyer, 54, who left his job as executive director of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to take his new $60,000-a-year post, said that driving Interstate 5 from Crown Valley Parkway to Santa Ana on Monday morning was “a sobering experience,” even though he left home at 6:15 a.m. in an effort to get a jump on traffic.

“I found it out again this morning . . . that the I-5 is totally overtaxed in its capacity from downtown Los Angeles almost to San Diego,” Meyer said.

‘Controversial, Difficult’

Meyer became the first full-time executive director of the San Joaquin Hills and Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor agencies. His job includes planning the construction of the three proposed freeways and finding money to get them built.

Meyer said that while the proposed freeways will help ease the traffic crush on the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways, “these (new) freeways are not going to be built overnight.”

He also said that deciding the exact alignment of the roads “is going to be controversial at times, it’s going to be difficult.”

Still, Meyer said he hopes that the three freeways will be built “within the next 10 to 15 years.”

The San Joaquin Hills corridor will connect the Corona del Mar Freeway (California 73) in Newport Beach to the Interstate 5 near Avery Parkway. Its estimated cost is $342 million. The joint-powers agency in charge of the project includes the cities of Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente, as well as the County of Orange.

Developers to Pay Share

The Eastern Corridor will link the Riverside Freeway with the Santa Ana Freeway through Anaheim Hills and North Tustin. The Foothill corridor will extend from the Eastern freeway along the Santa Ana Mountains to San Clemente. The combined cost of both roads is estimated at $516 million. The joint-powers agency in charge of the two roads includes Yorba Linda, Anaheim, Orange, Tustin, Santa Ana, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente, as well as the county.

Developers are expected to pay $415 million of the total $858 million cost of the new roads. One of Meyer’s jobs will be to identify federal and state funds that can be used to help build the freeways.

Before his post in Jacksonville, Meyer was assistant general manager of the San Diego Transit Corp.

In Florida, Meyer noted, “tolls are very acceptable to the general public as a way of paying” to maintain the highway system and bridges.

But Meyer said, “I’m not coming out here to California advocating that tolls are the way to go.”