Grand Jury Won’t Write a Report on Car-Pool Lanes

The Orange County Grand Jury, which has opined this year on everything from sex abuse to airport construction, cannot make up its mind about car-pool lanes.

Bill Wills, a member of the 1988-89 panel, said jurors split on the issue, deciding that more “objective” research is needed but otherwise could not reach any conclusions after ending their six-week inquiry into allegations that public officials have deliberately overstated the effectiveness of the lanes.

“Many grand jurors were disappointed with the decision not to write a report,” Wills said Wednesday. “Obviously, it’s a sensitive, very complex and highly confusing topic.”

Wills said the panel simply did not have enough time to thoroughly investigate the complaints that the grand jury received from Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) and members of Drivers for Highway Safety, a small, grass-roots group that believes car-pool lanes cause accidents and are not as effective in reducing traffic congestion and air pollution as public agencies have claimed.

Wills said grand jurors thought that the previous studies of car-pool lanes had been done either by strong advocates or critics and that more objective research is needed. “We may urge the next grand jury to take another look at it. . . . It’s somewhat difficult to get at this issue.”

Frizzelle said he was disappointed in the outcome. “Local agencies seeking to gain public support for car-pool lanes in essence have established data or interpretations of data that are inconsistent and self-serving in behalf of the lanes.”

The Republican legislator said that some car-pool reports have been written by consultants for transportation agencies which previously employed them on staff. Frizzelle called such arrangements “self-dealing.”

There should be a “decent interval” between the time someone leaves a public agency and then obtains consulting contracts from it, Frizzelle said.

If the grand jury is so confused by conflicting data that it can’t issue an opinion on car-pool lanes, Frizzelle said, it should come as no surprise that the public “is in no position to make decisions” about their worth