Head of New County Caltrans Office Vows to Step Up Assault on Traffic Congestion

Veteran state highway official Robert H. Ramey, named Monday to head Orange County’s first full-fledged Caltrans district office, said he will fight traffic congestion “any way and every way possible.”

“My first priority is to see that we improve the service to Orange County,” said Ramey, 60, of Yorba Linda.

However, Ramey, who has been with the Department of Transportation for 43 years, cautioned that he is inheriting a schedule of existing projects, such as the planned reconstruction of the Santa Ana Freeway-Costa Mesa Freeway interchange and the widening of the Santa Ana Freeway, and has no new list of his own.

“The projects that are already scheduled will remain the focus of our attention,” said Ramey, who has been serving as Caltrans’ deputy district director for construction and maintenance in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.

Ramey was appointed by Caltrans Director Leo J. Trombatore on Monday, less than a week after Gov. George Deukmejian bowed to political pressure and agreed to create a new Caltrans district, with its own staff, in Orange County. Until now, the county has been a separate district for purposes of divvying up state and federal highway money, but not for the deployment of Caltrans construction, engineering and maintenance personnel, who reported to the agency’s district office in Los Angeles.

Orange County officials claimed that a separate Caltrans staff was needed here to ensure that the county got its fare share of Caltrans resources. Last year, the Orange County Transportation Commission identified 10 highway projects that had slipped behind schedule, including the widening of the San Diego Freeway between Seal Beach and Irvine. Caltrans blamed delays on lack of personnel and difficulty in obtaining environmental documentation or other procedural problems.

Ramey said Monday that he did not know if any specific highway projects will be speeded to completion as a result of establishing a separate staff for Orange County. Caltrans was already shifting personnel to Orange County to staff a branch office in Santa Ana that would have reported to agency officials in Los Angeles.

A former project director for the Century Freeway in Los Angeles who once headed Caltrans’ district office in Fresno, Ramey was noncommittal about whether Orange County highway projects have suffered delays in the past due to staff working out of Los Angeles.

“I’ve worked in large district offices and small district offices,” he said. “In the smaller district offices you can get a quicker response (action on a project) because fewer people are involved. It’s not a big difference.”

Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission, praised Ramey for his “openness.”

“He’s been in Caltrans a long time,” said Oftelie, “but he seems genuinely committed to trying new things.”

Oftelie said that having a separate Caltrans director in Orange County would speed projects simply because such a person can personally intervene to “make things happen.”

He cited the example of Don Watson, Caltrans district director in Los Angeles, who had been sitting as an ex-officio, non-voting member of the Orange County commission. According to Oftelie, Watson’s personal intervention with federal highway officials succeeded in putting some projects back on schedule.

Ramey said Monday that he expects the Orange County district office to have about 500 to 800 employees eventually, including engineers, maintenance and right-of-way acquisition specialists.

He said he is developing a “core cadre” of people to move to Orange County in the next few months. He said the transfer of people from Los Angeles would not delay projects in either Los Angeles or Ventura counties.

“Most of those people were already working on Orange County projects,” said Ramey. “. . . The difference in having them in Orange County is perceptual. . . . You can go straight to the person who has the authority to say yes or no, and that helps.”

Ramey, who has lived in Yorba Linda with his wife, Marge, for nine years, started with Caltrans as a brush cutter in San Bernardino.

“I know Orange County’s transportation problems,” he said. “I drive those roads all the time.”