Frizzelle Says Poll Shows 86% Oppose New Freeway Pooling Lanes

A district mail poll conducted by Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) indicated that 86% of 15,414 respondents oppose new car-pool lanes planned for the San Diego Freeway, Frizzelle said.

Frizzelle acknowledged that he had erroneously described the planned lanes, which are due for installation in the next few months, as being reserved for vehicles with three or more occupants instead of two.

But he contended that the error did not influence survey results because respondents were also asked whether they would prefer a rule requiring just two or more occupants, and that drew support from just 250 of the people who had indicated opposition to the three-or-more regulation.

Frizzelle, who has said that the new lanes should be open to all traffic or used as car-pool lanes only during peak traffic hours, said just 2,159 people in his districtwide survey supported the special lanes. He said 90,000 households in his 69th Assembly District were sent questionnaires late last month. Frizzelle said the response rate of about 17% was unusually high for a mail survey.

The new car-pool lanes will be installed as part of a freeway widening project from Irvine to Seal Beach.

The Huntington Beach lawmaker said two weeks ago that Caltrans Director Leo Trombatore had said he would cancel the car-pool lanes if enough people objected. Trombatore denied this and, at a recent meeting, told Frizzelle that the lanes were required on federally funded freeway-widening projects.

Frizzelle said this week that he has pollution data to show that the federal guidelines are based on false assumptions about lower gasoline consumption on freeways that have car-pool lanes.

He vowed to work with Orange County congressional representatives to try to persuade the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to review their guidelines.