Auto Club Withdraws Support of Permanent Car-Pool Lanes on 55

The Automobile Club of Southern California has withdrawn its support for making permanent the experimental car-pool lanes on the Costa Mesa Freeway, according to a letter from the club’s transportation manager.

Although a spokesman for opponents of the car-pool lanes contended Sunday that this reversal could affect the future of the controversial experiment along the Costa Mesa Freeway, others said the club’s change of heart was insignificant.

In a letter to the chairman-elect of the Orange County Transportation Commission’s Route 55 Advisory Committee, Auto Club transportation engineer Manual Puentes called for further car-pool lane studies, because there are still “a number of unanswered questions.”

At a Jan. 7 advisory committee meeting, Puentes had voted for making the lanes a permanent freeway fixture. The advisory committee voted 16 to 1 to recommend that the Orange County Transportation Commission act to keep the 11 miles of car-pool lanes, which stretch from the San Diego Freeway to the Riverside Freeway.

But the letter--which was dated Jan. 22 and received by advisory committee members last Saturday--asked that committee chairman-elect Richard B. Edgar change Puentes’ vote from “yes” to “no.”

“We (the Auto Club) believe that Caltrans’ quarterly reports as well as their Annual Report continue to leave a number of unanswered questions pertinent to the intended scope of the demonstration,” the letter said. “I therefore reiterate my urging that . . . the Route 55 Advisory Committee continue their analysis of this project on a demonstration basis.”

The OCTC is scheduled to hold a public hearing at 9 a.m. today to decide the fate of the lanes.

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

Neither Edgar nor Puentes could be reached for comment Sunday. But Joe Catron, a committee member and chairman of Drivers for Highway Safety, which opposes the car-pool lanes as unsafe, on Sunday called Puentes’ change of heart significant.

“I think it could definitely affect it (the scheduled vote),” said Catron, who cast the advisory committee’s lone dissenting vote Jan. 7. “The Automobile Club has its own engineers and engineering department and would not come out with a statement like that if it’s not true. I think it should affect the decision on at least delaying that vote.”

Before Puentes wrote to Edgar, Catron and his group were alone, he said, in opposing the lanes. Catron said he would like to see the lanes phased out, but would be satisfied if a decision on making the car-pool lanes permanent were postponed until the completion of a UC Irvine study of the project.

But Jim Beam, the former mayor of Orange and past chairman of the Route 55 Advisory Committee, said Sunday that the only effect Puentes’ letter would have is a slight change in the committee’s vote on the lane demonstration project.

“Instead of 16-1, it’s 15-2,” said Beam, who remains a committee member.