Santa Ana Freeway Job Leaves Rest in Slow Lane : Transportation: Huge widening project will use up nearly every dollar of county highway funding for decades, report warns.

The $1.6-billion project to widen the Santa Ana Freeway is a black hole that will swallow up almost every dollar in state and federal highway money likely to flow to Orange County for the next two decades, according to a new state analysis.

Just to complete an 8-mile stretch of the freeway through Anaheim “would require full commitment for 15 to 20 years . . . of all resources that could reasonably be expected for Orange County,” the state analysis concludes.

The report was prepared for the California Transportation Commission in advance of its vote today on how to allocate state highway funds for the next seven years. Orange County is expected to receive $485 million, with about $365 million earmarked for the Santa Ana Freeway project. Of that, $156 million will cover just the cost overruns experienced so far.

The seven-year funding plan can be adjusted in two years, and local officials are debating behind the scenes whether Interstate 5 should retain such a high funding priority because other freeway improvement projects in the county are suffering as a result.

The debate is expected to intensify if a proposed half-cent sales tax for transportation projects is defeated on Nov. 6. The proposal, known as Measure M, would raise $2.1 billion, including $550 million for Santa Ana Freeway work.

“We’ve been telling people for years that I-5 is a sponge that soaks up everything,” Stanley T. Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission, said Tuesday. “But it’s not as if you’re pouring money into nothing. There are tangible benefits being produced. . . . But sure, if everything goes haywire (if Measure M fails), then we will have to re-evaluate our priorities.”

Widening the interstate from six to 12 lanes between the El Toro Y in Irvine and the San Gabriel River Freeway--Interstate 605--in Los Angeles County has been Orange County’s top funding priority for 10 years. Oftelie defended that fact by describing the freeway as the county’s “Main Street” of industry and commerce.

Also, it was the one big project that all segments of the county could agree on, he said. Commitments were made years ago to such cities as Anaheim and Santa Ana and such companies as Disneyland and the Irvine Co. to keep it at the top of the list. “We have to honor our commitments,” Oftelie said.

As a result, the county requested $465 million from the state for the project, but the California Transportation Commission’s staff is recommending $365 million. Another $33 million is recommended for installation of car-pool lanes on the Riverside Freeway and $5 million for the San Joaquin Hills tollway, with the rest of the county’s allocation split among smaller projects such as the widening of Pacific Coast Highway and Beach Boulevard.

“Adding capacity to (the Santa Ana Freeway) continues to be the top priority in Orange County,” according to the Caltrans staff report, “as it has for the past 10 years and probably will be for the next 20. The Santa Ana Freeway has as bad a congestion problem as any freeway in the state. . . . But costs have consistently outrun programming.”

For example, the cost of widening the segment between Irvine and Santa Ana has more than doubled since 1988, Caltrans estimates, from $170 million to $350 million. Moreover, land costs have escalated so rapidly that most of the state funding expected for Orange County could be used for right-of-way purchases during the next decade, with little or no money left over for concrete.

As a result, some people question the wisdom of pouring all of the county’s highway resources into one project.

At the request of the Orange County Transportation Commission, the state is already diverting $40 million from the project to help pay for the car-pool lanes on the Riverside Freeway. However, county officials hope that much of this money will eventually revert to the Santa Ana Freeway because a private consortium plans to build the extra lanes on the Riverside Freeway and recoup its costs through tolls.

The state Transportation Commission report said Orange County will need to supply local funds to complete both the land purchases and construction for the widening project, a statement sure to fuel the campaign rhetoric in favor of Measure M. A nearly identical measure was defeated a year ago, and a recent public opinion survey by The Times Orange County Poll showed that support has deteriorated badly in recent months, worrying transportation officials.

Bruce Nestande, a member of the California Transportation Commission and supporter of Measure M, said that without passage of the ballot proposal, “you look at the numbers (of dollars) on the I-5 project and you’ve got to ask yourself what it’s getting you, and whether you should be pouring money into right of way (purchases) for the next 15 years or diverting some money to protect our investment in other roads.”

But officials in Anaheim and other cities along the freeway are resistant to stalling the widening in favor of such improvements.

“You hear rumblings about changing the priorities,” said Anaheim Councilman Irv Pickler, a member of the County Transportation Commission. “But as far as I’m concerned, I-5 is the key. It’s not going to get any cheaper. We just can’t put it on the back burner.