Forces Marshaled for Decisive Showdown on Car-Pool Lanes

About 100 Orange County commuters are expected to attend a public hearing Monday that will decide the fate of the controversial Costa Mesa Freeway car-pool lanes.

The hearing before the Orange County Transportation Commission is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the county Hall of Administration in Santa Ana.

The California Department of Transportation, which built and operates the car-pool lanes, has said it will abide by the commission’s decision on whether to make the lanes permanent. The lanes were opened in November, 1985, as a yearlong demonstration project. They extend for 11.1 miles in both directions between the Riverside and San Diego freeways.

Joe Catron, owner of a car leasing firm and a former race car driver, said Friday that a grass-roots organization he co-founded, Drivers for Highway Safety, will present petitions signed by more than 100 freeway users asking the Transportation Commission to delay its decision until a public hearing can be held on an evening, when more people can attend.

But several commission members said Friday they believe that an evening hearing is unnecessary and they plan to vote Monday.

“You can only procrastinate so long before you need to take a stand,” said Anaheim Councilman Irv Pickler, a new member of the commission. “I’ve driven the freeway quite a lot, without a passenger and with, and I can see that the car-pool lane has made a difference. But I have an open mind, and at the very least I think we need to make some improvements.”

Pickler said he dislikes the freeway signs that designate where vehicles can enter and leave the car-pool lanes and wants Caltrans to improve them.

A citizens advisory committee earlier this month recommended keeping the lanes, but added as a condition that Caltrans improve the signs, among other things.

County Supervisor Roger M. Stanton, also a new commission member, said he probably would vote to end the car-pool lanes. Although he favors the special lanes conceptually, he said, they do not work well on the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Stanton said that his will probably be the only negative vote, and that it is not intended to be a criticism of other commission members or OCTC staff.

OCTC Executive Director Stan Oftelie said the panel probably will approve the car-pool lanes and disputed Catron’s assertion that public opinion is against the project.

Catron argues that surveys show car-pool lanes are ranked below new freeway construction and other options for reducing congestion. Oftelie counters that polls show that the public generally approves of car-pool lanes, especially in the absence of funds for new highways or other costly alternatives.

Difference in Speeds

Drivers for Highway Safety has consistently opposed the car-pool lanes, arguing that they increase accidents because vehicles whiz along next to weaving, congested traffic, with no barrier separating them. Nonetheless, research by the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Irvine so far has failed to pinpoint why the accident rate for the freeway has increased, and additional studies are under way. However, county transportation officials say that the safety issue is only one factor in deciding whether car-pool lanes perform well, and so far, they argue, the number of accidents has not increased dramatically.

According to year-end reports from Caltrans and OCTC, the car-pool lanes have speeded traffic significantly and have helped reduce congestion in the adjacent lanes. Drivers for Highway Safety has challenged the methods used to analyze the lanes’ performance and the accuracy of the data collected.