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O.C. Traffic Plan Gets Its 1st Green Light

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Times Urban Affairs Writer

An effort to ease traffic problems in congested Orange County advanced Monday with the unanimous passage by the County Transportation Commission of a 20-year $11.6-billion traffic improvement and growth management plan.

Despite expressions of concerns about financial oversight and continued reliance on the automobile, the plan was approved on a 6-0 vote and is now headed for ratification by the Board of Supervisors and the county’s 28 city councils. These agencies may only approve or reject the plan as it is presented to them; they cannot tinker with it.

Approval by a majority of the board and by council members representing a majority of the cities’ populations will permit the Transportation Commission to call for an election on a half-cent transportation sales tax. Should the plan be approved, which is expected, the sales tax proposal could be put before the voters as soon as Nov. 7.

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Orange County is the only urban county in the state without a sales tax for transportation projects, although public opinion surveys show residents consider traffic the county’s No. 1 problem and studies show that rush-hour traffic delays are now worse here than in Los Angeles. County voters soundly rejected a 1-cent transportation sales tax in 1984.

The commission and 100 participants and spectators who jammed the Hearing Room of the County Hall of Administration in Santa Ana heard about 1 1/2 hours of public testimony. The views conflicted sharply, raising the question of whether the sales-tax proposal could survive an election battle.

The plan, which would earmark funds for widening freeways and establishing new commuter rail service, would be financed partly with $3.1 billion from the half-cent sales tax. About 43% of the sales tax revenue would go for freeways, 25% to public transit and rail projects, 21% for street improvements and 11% for regional transportation projects.

‘Best We Could Get’

“This is the best plan we could get,” said Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, a commission member, as the commission prepared to vote after the public portion of the hearing was concluded. No one is going to be happy with every element in it, he said.

The key provisions of the plan include:

- $550 million to widen the Santa Ana Freeway from six to 12 lanes between the San Gabriel River Freeway and the San Diego Freeway. In addition, funds would be available for improving the interchange of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways, and for adding 140 miles of car-pool lanes to existing freeways.

- $450 million for street and road maintenance and improvements.

- More than $400 million for rail projects, including one to add two non-Amtrak trains for the Orange County stops on the Los Angeles-San Diego commuter line and one to establish rail service between Riverside and Irvine.

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Some transportation officials believe that full implementation of the 20-year plan could reduce traffic congestion to the 1983-84 level or better.

Last-Minute Compromise

The funding proportions reflect a last-minute compromise between the county’s 28 cities and county officials. It was introduced at the hearing by commission member Irv Pickler, an Anaheim councilman.

Previously, the plan called for 28% of the tax proceeds to go for transit and rail projects; officials from several cities wanted that figure reduced to 20% so as to make more money available for street improvements.

More than 20 people testified about the plan, including several who had been opponents of the 1984 sales-tax proposal. Most of those delivering opposing views Monday criticized the plan’s heavy reliance on car-pool lanes. Several environmentalists, however, said that even with its car-pool lanes and new rail projects, the 20-year plan would do too little to reduce reliance on the automobile.

Commission members sought to gain support for the plan from slow-growth advocates by adding provisions encouraging the placement of an open-space bond act on the same ballot as the sales tax.

But the biggest complaint voiced after the meeting was about the panel’s rejection of proposals for an elected citizens’ review committee to oversee the spending of the sales-tax proceeds. Instead, the commission amended the plan to require financial reviews by the Orange County Grand Jury.

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Commissioner Dana W. Reed, a Costa Mesa lawyer who serves as the public-at-large member, introduced the grand jury provision in an attempt to “avoid adding another layer of government” yet still heed public opinion surveys showing that voters strongly believe that government does not spend tax proceeds wisely. After the meeting, Reed said that to have the grand jury act in such an officially mandated review capacity may require state legislation. Currently, grand juries choose which if any government programs they will investigate.

Dalton Newland, a member of the 1988-89 grand jury who was at the meeting, said afterward, “We don’t know how much time it would take us to do what they’re asking, but it might be a proper thing for the grand jury to do.” Newland said the grand jury might have to hire an auditor to perform such tasks. The grand jury will probably write a letter to the commission after deciding its position on the issue, he said.

The decision to involve the grand jury disappointed some observers, including Norm Grossman, who served on two citizens’ panels that helped draft elements of the 20-year plan.

“They really blew it,” he said. “The grand jury doesn’t have the time or the authority. It’s already overloaded, and they only (serve) for a year. There’s no continuity of expertise.”

Jim Brooks of Irvine, a member of the citizens’ task force that county supervisors appointed to help draft the 20-year plan, was as angry as Grossman.

“I talked to four or five committee members after the meeting, and we’re a little miffed. I think we might meet in the next few days and write a letter withdrawing our support of the plan.”

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Brooks said his group had suggested that the overseeing be done by a citizens’ panel that would be selected in a manner similar to that for a grand jury but that would screen for people with some experience and knowledge in transportation issues. “It just makes no sense to have the grand jury do it. And what happened today was a complete surprise--nobody talked to us about it in advance.”

Other elements of the plan, however, won support from members of the citizens’ task force.

The group supported a sales tax, Brooks said, because it is “the most efficient and equitable” way to raise more money. It also supported a controversial provision approved with the plan Monday that would deny tax proceeds to cities that fail to adopt or adhere to strict growth-management programs.

Bill Jones, director of administration for the county’s largest employer, Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton, supported the traffic plan but urged the commission members to resist pressure to reduce transit’s share of the tax proceeds. “We need it now,” Jones said of public transit, to comply with new regulations by the South Coast Air Quality Management District aimed at reducing the number of solo drivers commuting to work. Car-pooling, Jones said, will not be enough.

Bill Ward, a member of Drivers for Highway Safety, attacked the 20-year plan as the product of officials who “live in a dream world.” A critic of car-pool lanes, Ward belittled the view voiced by several commission members that it is impossible to build enough freeways to handle the expected amount of traffic. “We are much more likely to build our way out than dream our way out” of the problem, he said. A tax for construction of more car-pool lanes, Ward said, will “go down in flames” at the polls.

Slow-growth advocates Tom Rogers and Russ Burkett, who helped lead the fight against the 1984 sales-tax measure, testified that the Transportation Commission should be replaced by an elected citizens’ panel to ensure that those who helped cause today’s traffic problems “aren’t given a blank check.”

Rogers said after the meeting that he was disappointed with the provision naming the grand jury as the oversight panel and that he would campaign against the sales tax because of that as well as because of what he believes are “fatal” weaknesses in the growth management regulations in the 20-year plan.

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The Transportation Commission, acting in its capacity as the Local Transportation Authority, was required by state law to draw up a 20-year plan before it could seek voter approval for a transportation sales tax.

TRANSIT AGENCY--Bill on Orange County transit agency advances. Part II, Page 5

TRAFFIC IMPROVEMENT TAX SPENDING PLAN The plan approved Monday by the Orange County Transportation Commission must be ratified by the county board of supervisors and by city governments. If it is ratified and if voters pass the half-cent sales tax, the proceeds would be spent as follows:

Cost in Project millions FREEWAY PROJECTS Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) between (I-405) and (I-605) $550 Riverside Freeway (91) between Riverside 400 and Los Angeles county lines Costa Mesa Freeway (55) between I-5 and 91 freeways 200 San Diego Freeway (I-405) between 5/405 interchange 80 and San Clemente San Diego Freeway (I-405)/Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) interchange 55 Orange Freeway (57) between I-5 and Lambert Road 40 Freeway subtotal 1,325 STREETS AND ROADS PROJECTS Streets and roads maintenance and improvements 550 Master plan of arterial highway improvements 100 Streets and roads subtotal 650 TRANSIT PROJECTS Backbone Rail Systems, automated guideway transit systems 340 Lossan Commuter Rail 130 Transitways 125 Riverside Commuter Rail 90 Pacific Electric right of way 50 Lossan Intercity Rail Program 20 Elderly and handicapped fare stabilization 20 Transit subtotal 775 REGIONAL PROJECTS Super Streets 120 Intersection improvement program 100 Regionally significant interchanges 70 Traffic signal coordination 50 Transportation systems management 10 Regional subtotal 350

Source: Orange County Transportation Commission

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