TUSTIN : ‘Super-Street’ Plan for Edinger Revealed

City officials got a first look at a proposal to transform Edinger Avenue into a county “super-street” on Monday.

The county proposal, called the Moulton Parkway Super-Street project, would create a 24 1/2-mile arterial highway that would begin at Main Street in Santa Ana and extend to Del Prado Avenue in Dana Point. The portion that would travel through Tustin is currently known as Edinger Avenue. As the road progresses southward, it also is known as Irvine Center Drive, Moulton Parkway and Street of the Golden Lantern.

According to project proposals, the super-street, one of 21 planned for Orange County, would have up to eight lanes, and intersections would be upgraded to include as many as two left turn lanes and a right turn lane. Addition of a bicycle lane will also be considered, according to documents.

The project is expected to cost about $70 million. The county is urging cities that will be responsible for implementing the project to apply for Measure M money as the primary source of funding, said Lance Natsuhara, senior engineer for the transportation division of the county Environmental Management Agency. Measure M, passed by county voters in 1990, imposed a half-cent sales tax to finance transportation projects.

County officials presented the project to Tustin officials Monday afternoon to allow the city to submit comments for the draft environmental impact report by June 24. The draft EIR is expected to be completed by November.

“We do have some very serious concerns that center around the overall traffic that is going to be generated,” Mayor Leslie Anne Pontious said. Those concerns include whether the city will be able to make improvements on feeder streets so that they can handle the heavier loads of traffic expected to spill onto them from the proposed super-street.

Also, officials said they are concerned about adding more construction woes in the city that is already grappling with projects on the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways. The freeway projects throughout the city have severely hurt businesses because many of them are not easily accessible during the construction.

“I challenge you to find another city that has been as impacted (by road construction) as Tustin,” Councilman Jim Potts said. He added that he would like the county to spell out the ways in which it would mitigate the effects that another construction project would have.