A Nice Place to Live, but Freeway Phobia Prevails

Living in Orange County is “wonderful,” Irvine businessman Jim Schroeder said Thursday, and he believes his ocean-view apartment in Laguna Beach is the “best in the whole 48 states.”

But on Friday nights he parks his car, and he doesn’t move it again until Monday morning. “I dread getting on the highway,” he said.

Schroeder has a lot of company. He is one of many county residents suffering from a quasi-phobia associated with crowds and cars. Call it fear of freeways.

According to the Sixth Orange County Annual Survey, released Thursday by UC Irvine’s Public Policy Research Organization, traffic is perceived by residents here as far and away the biggest problem they face.

So how bad is it? In the words of those who live or work in the county, it is “painful,” “brutal,” “ludicrous” and “very, very bad.”

It is so bad that, rather than enter a freeway at peak commuting hours:

- Schroeder will book a room at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport if he has a morning flight.

- Sign installer Ron Bridges will rise at 4:30 a.m. so his workday at the Irvine offices of Fluor Corp. will start at 6 a.m. and end at 2:30 p.m.

- Nurse Vicki Hauser of Orange simply will stay put--wherever she is.

“Twenty years ago, everybody was saying: ‘This is the greatest freeway system in the world. You could get anywhere like this,’ ” said Kirk Cluff, snapping his fingers.

But no more.

Cluff, 34, a county native, has watched the county’s autopia turn into suburban gridlock. Now, he says, “you have to do a lot of advanced planning to go to a nightclub or a nice restaurant. Going to the beach is a big project. You feel like a bunch of seals.”

The county’s population has grown from about 1.4 million in 1970 to 2.2 million today. According to county statistics, there are 1.6 million cars for those 2.2 million people.

The county has the highest ratio of cars to miles of freeway pavement in the state: 12,000 to 1.

As a result, what was a 20-minute drive in 1981 is now a 27-minute trip, and a 45-minute trip now takes at least an hour, according to county traffic engineers.

Some drivers said it’s worse than that.

“What used to take me 10 minutes now takes me 45,” said Cathy Williams of Laguna Hills. “I started taking back streets, but then I got a ticket--$126 for sneaking through the back streets!”

How fast was she going? “Well, I was in a hurry,” she said with a smile.

Schroeder, 49, recently clocked himself driving up Coast Highway for an 8 a.m. meeting at UC Irvine. The 9.8-mile trip--a 13-minute drive in non-commuting hours--took him 58 minutes.

Four days later, Schroeder, whose marketing business requires frequent travel, was taking a red-eye flight out of Los Angeles.

“I figure: 10 at night--easy,” he said. But “they were working on the 405, Diamond Lane construction. Traffic was backed up 15 minutes. Not only couldn’t I make progress, but I couldn’t get off. The exits were blocked.”

He missed the flight.

Not everyone, of course, has traffic problems.

Shirley Barnes said she deliberately solved hers before they began by deciding to live where she works--in Irvine. “I planned it that way,” Barnes said. “I got the job first and then got the house.”

And not everyone minds crowds.

Dan Haymond, 46, a sales engineer from Costa Mesa, likes lots of people. “In some ways, I enjoy it more now. There’s more to do, more to see, more shopping, more art, theaters.”

To survive, he said, he has set certain rules for himself. “Between 4 and 6, you shouldn’t attempt to go east on the Riverside Freeway, north on the Newport Freeway or north on the San Diego Freeway. Also, don’t go up and down on Bristol Street after 4:30 p.m.”

The San Diego Freeway to the Corona del Mar Freeway from the Garden Grove area in the peak morning hours is the worst traffic Sue Morris knows. It takes her 35 minutes to go 10 miles from her home in Garden Grove to Newport Beach, where she works as an account representative.

“It’s like a parking lot,” she said.

And even in parking lots, success requires ingenuity.

“It’s called creative parking,” said Kathleen Smith of Mission Viejo, who was grocery shopping in Santa Ana Thursday during her lunch hour to avoid crowds. She pointed to cars in the lot whose drivers had created their own parking spaces at the ends of the rows, causing traffic to back up.

Increasing commuter traffic has forced her to “leave earlier for work and curse a lot,” she said. “My personal opinion is that we should do all of the earthquake propaganda we can to keep people from coming to California.”

“I wouldn’t move to California now for anything but the weather,” said Dianne Sterrit, who works with Smith in Newport Beach. “It’s too crowded.”

Congestion is “why I don’t live here,” said attorney Jay Korn of Chino Hills.

“It is the demise of Orange County,” Schroeder predicted. “I think business will come to a standstill.”

He said he has installed car phones in his associates’ cars for those instances when they get stuck on the freeways. He bought telecopiers as an alternative way to send information to county clients. And he has considered moving his business to Phoenix.

“If we don’t stop it, or ultimately resolve it,” he said, “we’ll all be working out of our houses.”

Times Staff Writers Mariann Hansen and Jeffrey A. Perlman contributed to this article.