Transportation Panel Seeks Drivers’ 2 Cents’ Worth on Traffic Snarl

It’s official: There is no solution to our ever-worsening traffic dilemma.

That’s the conclusion of the Orange County Transportation Commission.

But while there is no single, overall solution, there may be plenty of individual, partial ones. A hundred, at least.

And beginning this week, the commission is asking thousands of experts--county drivers themselves--for help in finding the answers.

OK, so maybe you didn’t study traffic engineering in college. But if you’re out there fighting it every day, you’re a traffic expert of a different kind. Chances are there have been moments, as you were creeping along the freeway or stuck at a congested intersection, when you had a flash of insight and wondered, “Why don’t they try doing it this way?”

It happens to a lot of us, says Gloria Schlaepfer of Fullerton, a member of the Transportation Commission’s Citizens Advisory Committee. “But someone may think, ‘Oh, that’s been thought of before.’ Well, maybe it hasn’t.”

The project is called, appropriately enough, “100 Traffic Solutions.” The expert who challenged the county to come up with those 100 ideas was none other than Peter Ueberroth, now commissioner of major league baseball and resident of Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach, who first made the national spotlight when he was in charge of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles--you remember, the Olympics that made Southern California traffic better instead of worse?

Ueberroth proposed the project last year when he spoke to a gathering of business and government leaders trying to find ways to deal with what several surveys have found is considered the county’s biggest headache.

Instead of whining passively about how bad traffic is and how it will only get worse, he suggested, why not take a more active, positive approach and come up with some ways to make it better? Say, 100 ideas, in commemoration of the county’s centennial year?

Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley decided to take Ueberroth up on his challenge. When he was sworn in earlier this year as chairman of the OCTC, he made it a theme for the year, according to commission spokesman Tom Fortune.

“Now we’re busily soliciting suggestions,” Fortune says.

The campaign began with a newspaper ad Sunday, complete with a large coupon to be filled in, cut out and mailed back to the OCTC. The panel has also prepared brochures with tear-off, postage-paid cards, which Schlaepfer and other volunteer speakers will distribute at meetings of service clubs and community organizations. Brochures will also be sent to every name on the OCTC’s mailing list.

The suggestions can be on any scale, from a proposal to coordinate the signals at two adjoining intersections to a comprehensive change that would affect the whole county.

“I don’t think anybody’s expecting that someone will come up with some new technology or design that will take care of everything,” says Mark Goodman, Riley’s executive assistant. “It’s a lot more complex than that.

“But this is a recognition that there are a whole lot of things we can be doing. We don’t know how many of (the ideas) will be workable or realistic in terms of cost or technology, but we’ll try to implement as many as we can.”

So far, the commission is already looking seriously at implementing one early suggestion, from a Mission Viejo man. Fortune says: “He suggested that on street signs at intersections, we not only put the street name and block number, but we make the numbers get larger or smaller in sequence to kind of act as an arrow. That way if you’re looking for a particular address, you’ll know which way to turn.”

Clarice A. Blamer, a councilwoman in Brea who is also a member of the Transportation Commission, says that idea arrived just in time: “I was just getting ready to propose an ordinance in our city to require all buildings to have their numbers visible. But this will certainly simplify it a great deal.”

Although the ads and brochures say “return by Nov. 30, 1988,” Fortune says the commission will be accepting suggestions through the end of the year.

Suggestions can be as brief or as lengthy as you desire. Although the commission asks that you include your name and address (“so we can give you credit”), Fortune says that if you would rather remain anonymous, that’s fine too, but the OCTC or its consultants will not be able to contact you if they have questions or need further explanation.

If your idea is one of those selected, you won’t win a prize. Your only reward will be the warm feeling of knowing you’ve made your drive--and someone else’s--a little less frustrating.

If you’d like a little extra glory, however, send your suggestion to us here at Life on Wheels. We’ll publish the best of those we receive and pass all of them on to the OCTC.

Or if you prefer, write to the Orange County Transportation Commission, 1055 N. Main St., Suite 516, Santa Ana, Calif. 92701.