Is Orange County Anti-Tax in Its Refusal to Vote for Freeways?

Re the story “A Missing Link in Transit Planning” (Aug. 12) and Joel Blain’s Commentary “County Owes Freeways a Lot but Doesn’t Want to Pay Up” (Aug. 5): The two recent articles have put forth the theme that Orange County taxpayers are somehow shirking their moral duty in not supporting Proposition 111, Measure M, or its reincarnation.

This is blamed on the traditional anti-tax stance of Orange County. That’s an over-generalization, which misses an essential point.

We voted against these measures for various reasons. Sure, a significant number of Orange County residents may be counted on never to vote for a tax increase. At the same time, however, there are a significant number of us, enough to have passed the measure, who would have supported it enthusiastically had it offered a rational, cost-effective solution to our terrible freeway congestion problem.

Instead, the “20-Year Plan” to which these measures were and are still committed would waste the bulk of the funds on cost-ineffective measures such as high-occupancy vehicle lanes and rail transit, which never has and never will carry more than about 5% of commuter traffic in communities as diffuse as ours.

Only 10% of the plan is devoted to the one alternative that is by far the most cost-effective, the only alternative ever to have demonstrated the capability to fill the bulk of our modern transportation needs, the only alternative that could solve our congestion problem within the proposed funding: old-fashioned, general purpose freeway lanes.

If and when our transportation commissioners assume their responsibility to provide informed leadership and put forth a cost-effective plan to solve congestion, we will support it.

In the meantime, we trust Orange County voters, in their common sense, will continue to reject it, no matter how many times it is served up in its present wasteful, ineffective form.

JACK MALLINCKRODT

Drivers for Highway Safety

Santa Ana