State Panel Awards County $124 Million for Freeway Projects

The California Transportation Commission on Thursday voted to spend $124.2 million in federal funds next year for six crucial Orange County freeway-widening and interchange projects, most of them concentrated along the heavily congested Santa Ana Freeway corridor.

The agency’s action came during a meeting in San Francisco on how to divide about $177 million in federal funds that are earmarked for California freeway improvements next year.

The fact that Orange County captured the lion’s share of the money comes as no surprise because its freeway projects are top priorities in the state’s five-year plan for freeway improvements and were ready to go out for bid, said Bruce Nestande, a state transportation commissioner from Orange County.

“The significance for Orange County is that the Orange County transportation program is still on schedule,” Nestande said.

But he stressed that the commission’s action on Thursday shouldn’t leave the impression that Orange County no longer needs a half-cent sales tax increase to fund additional transportation projects.

“Our plan for the sales tax is built upon receiving these (funds) from the state and federal government” in the first place, Nestande said.

The projects approved by the commission on Thursday are:

* $47 million for the second phase of construction on the interchange between the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways. The second phase would build direct connectors and so-called flyover ramps at the interchange to replace the loop ramps that now result in traffic backing up there, said Walt Hagen, chief deputy district director for project management in Caltrans’s Orange County office.

* $30 million for widening the Santa Ana freeway from the Costa Mesa Freeway to its confluence with the San Diego Freeway, known as the El Toro Y. The project would double the size of the current six-lane stretch to 12 lanes in all, said Hagen. Construction of the project could begin in January, he added.

* As part of that widening project, Caltrans also will pay the county $6.8 million to put in a drainage system upstream from the roadway to prevent flooding of the freeway, said Hagen.

* $35.3 million for widening the Costa Mesa Freeway along a two-mile stretch from 19th Street to Wilson Street. Excavation of this part of the freeway was done 20 years ago, but the paving project was never undertaken, leaving the road width only three lanes in either direction, said Hagen.

* $4.3 million for construction of on- and off-ramps from the Santa Ana freeway to Beach Boulevard in Buena Park.

* $900,000 for additional sound walls along the San Diego Freeway, where Caltrans crews are finishing up new high-occupancy vehicle lanes. The new lanes will stretch 24 miles from the San Gabriel River Freeway to the El Toro Y.