Measure M Is Last, Best Hope for Traffic : * Be Prepared to Wait a Few Lifetimes for Help if It Fails

How would Orange County motorists feel about having the disruptive widening project of the Santa Ana Freeway drag on for decades, and at the end find themselves funneling to a halt at the El Toro “Y”?

What will commuters do when spillover traffic from congested freeways becomes so bad that it turns to gridlock on local streets?

Orange County arguably has the worst traffic in California already, and it’s not going to get better by itself. Unless voters pass Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements, the previously mentioned projects and others--including money for rail transportation--will fall by the wayside. And the nightmare of getting around Orange County will get worse. Voters who think that somebody in Sacramento ought to solve the problem had better be prepared to wait a few lifetimes for some magical new funding formula to come to the rescue.

Meanwhile, we’re all stuck in traffic. And by the turn of the century, more than $400 million in matching state funds, already approved by the voters in gas tax and rail bond money, is there for the asking. But all that money will be diverted elsewhere, lost forever to Orange County, unless Measure M passes. The county would simply be ignored by the state officials who set priorities for transportation spending--and who take the view that they will help those who help themselves.

There is no good time to ask people to give themselves this boost by paying additional sales taxes, and many understandably think that they have already given at the pump. But even to get its allocated share, Orange County must say yes to Measure M.

Polling shows that when Orange County voters are shown what projects their money will pay for, they recognize the importance of an affirmative vote. And they must go to the polls understanding that without Measure M, they can expect the widening of the Santa Ana Freeway to drag on for 30 to 40 years, and that motorists in the southern part of the county will have to manage without a wider freeway there, and that there will be no relief in sight at that crossroad of frustration, the El Toro “Y.”

Measure M will also expand commuter rail service, add lanes to the Costa Mesa and Riverside freeways, synchronize traffic signals on major streets, improve transit service and more. What that means is choices for people trying to navigate a snarled county. Relieving congestion can afford the county a window to plan more wisely for its future.

Don’t think that a no vote is a way of sticking it to developers. Failure to pass Measure M would simply boomerang on the voters, dooming them to endure an inadequate transportation system that has sprung up from previous unbridled growth. And while traffic got worse, there would be no hope that the cities and the county could ever again agree on anything better.

So what’s a half-cent worth when you live with the worst traffic in the state? Measure M is Orange County’s best hope for making a difference.