Transportation Panel Supports More Study of Limits on Trucks

The Orange County Transportation Commission voted Monday, 6 to 0, to study further the possibility of easing traffic congestion on the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways by limiting the number of trucks.

The vote followed a report by Transportation Management Services, a private consulting firm in Pasadena, recommending that owners and drivers of trucks with three or more axles voluntarily limit their travel on the freeways.

The TMS study involved truck traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway from the San Gabriel River Freeway to the San Diego Freeway in Irvine--where reconstruction is expected to occur during the next 10 years--and also on the Costa Mesa Freeway, where reconstruction is scheduled through 1994.

The TMS report said truck traffic should be limited during morning commute hours on the Santa Ana Freeway and from noon until 6 p.m. on the Costa Mesa Freeway.

The study said that on the Santa Ana Freeway, where large trucks make up 3.4% of the traffic, they are involved in 8% of the accidents and account for an estimated 36% of “all accident-associated delay time.”

The study said that on the Costa Mesa Freeway, large trucks make up 2.2% of the traffic, are involved in 3.3% of the accidents and account for 19% of the accident-associated delay time.