Commentary : Cutting Back the Daily Commute

Orange County’s unique pattern of development--26 small cities with no single metropolis--holds the key to solving the county’s most pressing problem--rush-hour traffic.

Everyone working to solve the county’s surface transportation problem, defined as too many automobiles going from home to work in the morning and from work to home in the evening, is concentrating on a single objective: to move hundreds of thousands of people as effectively as possible on an inadequate freeway and roadway system.

Some believe that the answer is to widen the freeways. Others want to add new freeways. Still others want to create “super streets.” Some look to create special lanes for high-capacity vehicles such as buses, vans and car pools. And a few favor construction of a fixed-rail transit system.

All of these solutions are sound. And a combination of all is needed. But all are also expensive, will take time to implement and will be successful to varying degrees. Perhaps worst of all, a vote of the people may be required.

Yet, there is a cost-free, sure-fire way to help relieve rush-hour congestion. And that is to reduce commuting by each of us living near where we work, or working near where we live.

How simple. Rather than worry ourselves about how John Jones gets from home in Irvine to work in Anaheim, we merely have Jones move his home to Anaheim or his job to Irvine.

This cannot readily be done in many urban areas of the nation. If one works in Los Angeles’ central manufacturing district, for example, there is no place to live nearby at all.

But in Orange County, development patterns permit an extremely close living and working relationship. There are both good jobs and lovely homes in Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Brea, Fullerton, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Newport Beach and Orange. And the job picture is strengthening among the good homes in Buena Park, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Tustin, Westminster and Yorba Linda.

In the South County, jobs are increasing rapidly in the El Toro/Laguna Hills/Mission Viejo area, and jobs are growing along with homes in Rancho Santa Margarita.

The problem, of course, is that Americans cherish their freedom to live wherever they want and to work wherever they find the best job. Thus, we have an accountant working in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Town Center who ignores the fairly reasonable but nice housing in Costa Mesa and nearby South Santa Ana, who drives past the smaller and more dense housing in Irvine, in order to live in a rambling house in Mission Viejo.

Some cities have considered placing a restriction on newly approved homes so that they can be sold only to people working in that city. But builders have opposed this because it drastically limits their market.

Some companies have considered buying nearby homes or building homes on excess land and having the homes available only to their employees. But these plans have not worked out, except at an institution such as UC Irvine where an on-campus housing program is in operation.

Some cities require that municipal employees live in the city in which they work, but most do not enforce the restriction.

Of course, companies could hire only people who live within five miles of the company, but the departments requiring only the best available people would object, as would people discriminated against because of their place of residence.

So, the answer seems to be up to each of us. We have to choose between driving on increasingly crowded freeways and congested highways, or changing our place of residence or place of work. And the switch becomes more complicated with two-worker households.

Will Orange County residents do this? Will an executive give up his or her sprawling home in the horsy area of Lemon Heights in order to move to a smaller home on a tight lot in Newport Beach? Will a secretary living in Laguna Niguel give up the excitement of a job in an Anaheim hotel to take a new job in a hospital or office in the local area?

Yes, they will. When the commute becomes too tough. What is too tough? That differs for each of us.

A temporary help firm told me that its Brea office, which once got special requests from temporary secretaries to work in Newport Beach because of higher hourly pay, now finds its Brea-area registrants refusing jobs in Newport Beach. The drive is too difficult.

Some people will find traffic too tough and make the change sooner. Others will make the change later. And still others will continue to do battle with the traffic. And that is their choice.

Meanwhile, they will grumble about stopping growth, about holding back development and blocking freeways--until they realize that Orange County’s growth cannot be stopped, but rather can be properly planned. And only then will they begin to make home and job changes.

Move out of the county to solve their problem? But that means changing both home and job, if indeed one can find an area with good jobs close to good homes.

But then, that is just what we have here in Orange County.