COUNTYWIDE : Start Date Chosen for Building Lanes

The Orange County Transportation Commission on Monday scheduled March 21 as the groundbreaking date for car-pool lanes on the Orange Freeway.

The lanes, the first project under Measure M, will be installed along a 12-mile stretch of the freeway between Lambert Road and the Garden Grove Freeway. One lane for car pools will be added in each direction.

Orange County already has the state’s most extensive system of car-pool lanes, with more than 70 miles of them in place on the San Diego and Costa Mesa freeways.

The $24-million Orange Freeway project is scheduled for completion in 1992.

The car-pool lanes are included in Measure M, the half-cent sales tax increase for transportation improvements that voters approved in November.

Although the tax increase does not take effect until April 1, the commission recently sold bonds to get an early start on construction. Revenue from the sales tax increase will be used to pay off the bonds.

Also on Monday, the commission voted to oppose legislation in Sacramento aimed at barring use of public funds to aid private toll-road projects.

The bill, SB 144, takes aim at a controversial project in Northern California, but officials said it could also block plans for a privatized toll road on the median of the Riverside Freeway and a tollway extension of the Orange Freeway along the Santa Ana River.