Traffic Lightens Up as Holiday Weekend Winds Down

One of the traditionally busiest travel times of the year wound down Sunday evening, with airport crowds and holiday traffic in Orange County reported to be only moderately heavy.

The California Highway Patrol office in Santa Ana reported no major tie-ups on the freeways through late Sunday evening.

“It’s been slow as far as the numbers of calls that we have received and the number of calls we’ve had to go out on,” said CHP dispatcher Janelle Clem. “Everything seems to be running very smoothly as far as people being on the roads; it seems they’re being a little safer, too.”

Clem said that between 6 p.m. Dec. 31 and early Sunday, the CHP made 73 arrests for drunk driving in the county. No fatalities been had been reported on the county’s highways, although three cities recorded fatal accidents on surface streets over the weekend.

A tuxedo-clad Norco man, apparently returning home from a holiday party, was killed early Sunday in Irvine when his pickup crashed into a piece of heavy construction equipment and flipped end over end on a closed road near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

The victim, 21, whose identity was being withheld pending notification of relatives, was found dead in his vehicle at 10:40 a.m. on Sunday after a farmer spotted the wreckage on Barranca Parkway at Technology Drive.

Irvine Police Sgt. Mike Ogden said the driver apparently failed to see the stop sign where Barranca dead-ends into Technology.

The man, driving a 1977 Ford Courier pickup, ran the stop sign, struck the back of a Caterpillar tractor-truck and veered off into a muddy field, flipping twice before coming to rest upside down.

One person was killed and seven others injured in an accident Friday in Huntington Beach that police said involved drunk driving, and a 69 year-old pedestrian was killed Saturday while crossing Katella Avenue in Orange.

Amtrak officials reported very heavy train travel during the holiday period. Curt Bormann, a travel clerk at Union Station in Los Angeles, said virtually all long-distance trains to such places as Chicago and New Orleans were sold out.

Ridership data for stations in Orange County were not available, Bormann said, but all of the stations--Santa Ana, Anaheim and especially Fullerton--were “very crowded and working at capacity.”

Bormann said that trains around the country were working at maximum capacity and that officials had placed every available car into use for both long- and short-distance runs.

“This is typically a very heavy period with families returning from Christmas vacations,” Bormann said. “We tend to get a lot of people coming in for our long-distance runs and having to be turned away.

“People think that nobody rides trains, so they come in at the last minute and think they will be able to book seats. But in fact, most of our runs are sold out weeks in advance.”

The scene at John Wayne Airport, however, appeared surprisingly calm Sunday afternoon. The heaviest traffic was at the Delta counter, where about 40 travelers heavily weighed down with luggage formed a line.

Doug Scherff, general manager of American Airlines at John Wayne, said passenger loads were slightly higher than normal Sunday, running at 60% to 75% of capacity. Normal passenger capacity would be in the 60% range, while a very heavy travel day would be about 90%, he said.

“Today’s passenger loads are not as heavy as might be expected, possibly because the traveling has been spread out over a number of days rather than concentrated on one or two days, as during other holiday periods,” he said.

Even the airport coffee shop appeared empty. David Kumashiro of Fountain Valley, who was ringing up tabs at the cash register, said traffic had slowed considerably in the afternoon after brisk business in the morning.

“Thanksgiving was the busiest time here at John Wayne, and even that didn’t compare to what we get during the summer months,” Kumashiro said. “I think people just are not traveling as much this season, maybe because they have been scared away by airplane accidents.”

At the Delta ticket counter, Robin Brechtel of Costa Mesa was not traveling but found herself waiting in a long line anyway.

“I’m just here trying to pick up tickets for a trip we’re taking to New Orleans in February for Mardi Gras, and today was the last day I could do it,” she explained. “It looks like I really got stuck in it.”