New Freeway Ramp Intended for Car Pools

Dear Street Smart:

Can anyone explain the curious structure that’s taken shape recently on the Santa Ana Freeway, just north of Alton Parkway, in Irvine? Caltrans has built a two-lane ramp that rises from the inside lanes and connects with a freeway overpass.

I have a quiet wager going that within a month after the lanes reopen, someone going south at the usual 70 m.p.h. will hit that ramp and do and Evel Knievel off the far end.

Paul E. Sandorff

San Clemente

The ramp will someday provide direct access to the car-pool lanes on the freeway, according to Caltrans spokesman Albert Miranda. It’s meant to make life easier for long-distance commuters who car-pool or take buses to businesses concentrated in that area, he said.

Specifically, the ramp will allow southbound car-poolers to exit to surface streets without having to merge across freeway traffic. Cars from the surface streets can reach the northbound car-pool lanes via the ramp.

When the ramp will open depends on when the car-pool lanes will open. Although work is nearly finished, Caltrans is hesitant to open the lanes before the new Santa Ana/Costa Mesa freeways interchange is finished, as discussed in this column recently.

As the Santa Ana Freeway widening project moves northward, you can expect to see more of these type of ramps in the coming years at key locations, Miranda said.

Dear Street Smart:

I thought Mission Viejo approved left-turn signals to be added to the traffic light at Trabuco Road and Modesto Drive. Is it going to be done or what?

Lynnelle Foreman

Mission Viejo

Next month, the Mission Viejo City Council is expected to start the bidding process. The signals should be up and running by early December, figuring in time for the bidding process and installation, according to city Traffic Engineer Shirley Land.

Dear Street Smart:

I have lived in the Pomona Valley area for the past 14 years and commuted each working day to Anaheim. There are only three ways to go on this commute: the Riverside Freeway, the Orange Freeway and Carbon Canyon Road.

I have seen no improvements made on any of these three routes in my 14 years of using them. Could you tell me of any known street improvements planned along these roadways?

Why not cut a new road across Chino Hills or widen Carbon Canyon Road? This would take a large burden off the freeways.

Jim Young

Ontario

For one of the highways you mention--the Orange Freeway--relief is in sight. A car-pool lane in each direction is being added from the Santa Ana Freeway junction up to Lambert Road in Brea.

Construction began about two months ago, and the lanes are expected to open by spring 1993, according to Caltrans. This is the first project to be paid for by the half-cent transportation sales tax that Orange County voters approved last year, said Caltrans spokesman Steve Saville.

As for Carbon Canyon Road, preliminary studies on expanding the road to two lanes in each direction are soon to begin. But don’t expect these lanes to open in the near future. There is no construction schedule and no funds have been set aside, as of yet. The immediate priority is to upgrade the local freeways in the general area first, Saville said.

With that in mind, note that Caltrans is adding left-turn pockets along Carbon Canyon Road. Construction on the pockets began last week, Saville said.

No through roads similar to Carbon Canyon Road are planned for the Chino Hills. But extensions of Soquel Canyon Road in the future, as the area develops, may offer an alternate connection to Carbon Canyon Road from San Bernardino County, according to Bob Peterson, manager of transportation planning for Orange County.

On the Riverside Freeway, construction of car-pool lanes from Riverside to Corona has been ongoing and the lanes are expected to open in less than a year. Contracts to extend the lanes to the Orange County line are now being taken.

However, plans to build a four-lane toll road along the freeway median from the county line to the Costa Mesa Freeway have been delayed. Either construction will begin in the summer of 1992, with an opening date of mid-1994, or the county may choose to return to its original plans and build two car-pool lanes in each direction.

Other factors, such as lawsuits and financing, may affect tollway construction plans, so keep watching the paper.

Finally, if you can hang on a few more years, you might be able to take the train. A line running from the Riverside-Corona area along the Riverside Freeway and connecting to the main Amtrak Los Angeles-San Diego route is soon to be studied, according to Brian Pearson, of the Orange County Transportation Authority. The plan calls for two inbound morning trains and two outbound evening trains, with service beginning in 1995, Pearson said.

All-aboard!