EPA Head Asked to Kill Ruling Against I-5 Plan : Traffic: Lawmakers seek to preserve a continuous on/off lane and avert delay in massive widening project.

Angered by a tentative ruling that threatens to stall or scale back widening work along a critical juncture of the Santa Ana Freeway through Anaheim, Orange County’s state and federal lawmakers have sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency chief asking that he reverse the earlier decision.

In a Dec. 20 letter authored by Assemblyman Gil Ferguson and released to the press on Thursday, more than a dozen members of the county’s congressional and legislative delegations asked EPA Administrator William Reilly for his “prompt intervention” to ensure that the project go forward immediately as planned.

The EPA has objected to a continuous lane in each direction between the Garden Grove and Riverside freeways that traffic could use to merge for on-ramps and exits. The agency has asked that these strips of asphalt, known as auxiliary lanes, be eliminated and the project be scaled back from 12 lanes to 10 along that stretch.

Auxiliary lanes normally are seen as amenities that help reduce pollutants by easing traffic congestion. But EPA officials contend that plans by the California Transportation Department effectively turn the auxiliary lanes into regular lanes because they run continuously along the freeway instead of starting and stopping at the mouths of the various ramps.

As a result, the lanes will attract more single-occupant cars than might otherwise flock to the freeway, pouring more pollutants into the region’s already tainted air, the EPA contends.

County and Caltrans officials, however, say the lanes will merely improve traffic flow and will not influence how many people use the freeway.

The EPA’s objections have held up environmental clearances for the widening work, and Caltrans needs such approvals before the agency can acquire rights of way.

If the argument persists, progress on the massive project could be stalled, delaying the purchase of right of way and increasing costs dramatically, local officials contend.

“EPA is throwing a needless, contradictory and delaying obstacle in the way of this critical project,” the Orange County lawmakers said in the letter, which was mailed to Reilly earlier this week. “Each day of delay means additional costs as the price of this valuable land continues to rise. The delay also harms the economy of this region.”

The letter calls the freeway “the most severely congested” in the state and suggests that the widening project “is recognized as the most critical transportation project in decades to the economy of the state of California.”

It also notes that the EPA has already approved auxiliary lanes on another segment of the Santa Ana Freeway of a design identical to those under objection.

EPA officials say that Caltrans and Orange County officials have failed to show what the air-quality benefits of the freeway widening would be given its likelihood of attracting more traffic.

Generally, the EPA requires that freeway improvements do not add to the region’s air pollution problem, which is the worst in the nation. For example, the EPA welcomes highway projects that improve the flow of existing traffic but frown upon those that attract more cars.