Unclog Freeways First

The Orange County proposition to fund added lanes to the existing freeways, new freeways into undeveloped areas, a light-rail system and expansion of the bus system was rejected a few years ago, not because people did not want to pay for more lanes on the existing freeways, but because they were also asked to support the other projects. Your article of Nov. 21 substantiates this preference by those surveyed.

Orange County Transit District officials continue to try to re-engineer our minds toward their perceived solutions, while we wish they could get on with the job of providing the free-flowing freeways that we are paying them to provide. I feel confident that we would pay another five cents a gallon for gasoline if the money were devoted solely to widening and improving the existing freeways. And while they are about it, they should add several lanes in each direction, not one more lane in each direction, only to have to fund another lane five years hence.

The No. 1 priority should be the stretch of Interstate 5 between the Garden Grove and Costa Mesa freeways. This is an obvious bottleneck, with three freeways merging into the I-5 at the northern intersection, and two freeways separating at the southern intersection.

B.P. WASHBURNE

Buena Park