ORANGE COUNTY 1990 : For Commuters, More Options but More Traffic Too

Orange County commuters of the 1990s will have more transportation options, including a gleaming monorail, trolleys, a high-speed train, toll roads and special freeway ramps reserved for buses and car pools, say traffic planners.

Moreover, “smart streets” and “smart corridors” will become commuter buzzwords as traffic flow is turned over to control centers with computers utilizing artificial intelligence to analyze delays, recommend solutions and fine-tune signal timing on surface streets near clogged freeways.

But despite the high-tech wizardry, the next decade will still be dominated by the solo driver wrapped in the chrome, steel and glass of the private automobile, frustrating most efforts to relieve traffic congestion, these same experts add.

Indeed, traffic planners say, the 1990s will see average rush-hour freeway speeds drop from the current 25 m.p.h. to 18-20 m.p.h.

Says Joe El-Harake, Caltrans’ director of special projects: “One hour of delay (stop-and-go traffic) today will become three hours by 1999.”

Almost unanimously, respondents to an informal Times mail survey agreed that traffic will still be the Orange County’s worst problem.

Even law enforcement officials interested in building more jails listed traffic congestion as the decade’s biggest challenge.

The county’s internal growth alone adds more than 60,000 vehicles each year to Orange County streets and freeways. County residents already spend more time in traffic delays than their counterparts in Los Angeles, according to a regional study.

Some relief, however, is on the way, based on these predictions--and working plans--of transportation experts:

* A monorail will link John Wayne Airport with a privately owned office complex across the street. The line probably will be extended to the Amtrak station in the Irvine Spectrum area and link up with monorails now being considered by five Orange County cities.

* A privately owned, 300-m.p.h. magnetically levitated super-speed train will link Anaheim with Las Vegas, serving as a land ferry for Inland Empire residents commuting to job-rich Orange County. The train’s Anaheim terminal, near Anaheim Stadium, is expected to become a major rail hub with connections to Amtrak and local commuter trains.

* More than 65 miles of publicly owned tollways in southern and eastern Orange County will be open by 1997. Frequent users will deposit money in advance into a special account that can be debited directly, with electronic scanners reading coded windshield tags for vehicle owner identification. It may also be possible to debit credit cards.

* An extension of the Orange Freeway along the Santa Ana River may be built as a private toll road.

* High-tech traffic-control centers will monitor traffic flow with a combination of buried pavement sensors, closed-circuit TV cameras, radar and possibly satellite reconnaissance, with computers then able to recommend solutions to traffic jams and adjust signal timing on freeway ramps and surface streets.

* Although there is talk of building a new regional airport, it won’t be ready for 15 to 20 years, increasing pressure on John Wayne Airport’s new passenger terminal, scheduled to open in September, 1990. Airlines serving John Wayne may begin offering flights to Washington and even New York. But fares will be high, predicts airport manager George Rebella, because even the business market won’t find enough seats to satisfy demand.

Meanwhile, Steve Hogan, director of transportation in the county’s Environmental Management Agency, says commuting on the ground “should be a little shorter in terms of time, and I hope in terms of distance as well, with people living closer to their jobs than they do now.”

But, lacking funds to build new freeways, the emphasis will be on high-tech traffic management, experts agree. There’s even talk of somehow using the county’s existing freeway emergency call box network as a cheap way to monitor traffic and feed data to traffic control computers.

“It’s like we’re in the movie ‘Back to the Future II,’ ” says Stanley T. Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission. “There’s no telling what little things we do now will affect traffic several years from now.”

Planned Transportation Corridors

Estimated Average Projected Daily Traffic* Opening Corridor Opening Day 2010 Date San Joaquin Hills 100,000 150,000 1994 Transportation Corridor Easter Transportation 60,000 120,000 1995 Corridor Foothill Transportation 45,000 115,000 1994 Corridor (A) Foothill Transportation 30,000 75,000 1997 Corridor (B)