$500-Million Bond Sale OKd for County Freeway Construction

Reconstruction of the interchange of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways and other major highway improvements moved closer to reality Monday as county transportation officials voted to sell $500 million in bonds.

The sale, to be discussed with bond rating firms on Wall Street this week in New York, will finance projects such as the installation of car-pool lanes on Interstate 5 south of the El Toro Y interchange and the purchase of rights of way for the widening of the Santa Ana Freeway through Anaheim.

“This is a very significant financing,” said San Juan Capistrano Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer, the newly seated chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority. “It sends a message that we are going to do what we told voters we were going to do.”

Bonds are needed, officials said, because the rate at which taxes are collected doesn’t match the progress of construction.

The bond sale will finance three years’ worth of Measure M projects. Measure M is the half-cent sales tax increase for transportation improvements approved by voters countywide in November, 1990.

To help manage the projects, OCTA board members voted Monday to hire Irvine-based Fluor Daniel to serve as a consultant overseeing the work. The company will receive about $800,000 a year under a renewable two-year contract. Using a consultant, officials said, alleviates OCTA’s need to increase its own staff as more projects get underway.

Also on Monday, the board:

* Voted to ask cities not to approve billboards that will occupy land needed for freeway widenings, because billboard owners later collect top dollar from taxpayers to remove the signs.

Westminster Councilman Charles Smith, an OCTA board member, proposed the policy and asked staff to investigate the possibility of withholding transportation money from cities that ignore the request.

* Approved once again a plan to offer commuters nine round trips on the Los Angeles-Oceanside rail corridor through Orange County by April, 1995. One train currently supplements existing Amtrak service on the same line, with two more OCTA trains scheduled to be added by December, 1993, under the Metrolink name. Metrolink is the moniker adopted for commuter rail service by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, of which OCTA is a member. Meanwhile, OCTA will study the possibility of extending the route of its existing commuter train to Oceanside.

* Heard Hausdorfer, the new OCTA chairman, list his priorities for the next 12 months, including a round of community forums on the future of rail transit in Orange County and piecing together a comprehensive transportation policy instead of dealing with Measure M projects in isolation.

Referring to urban rail or monorail service, Hausdorfer said forums would help determine what the public wants and how it should be funded. “It’s the end user who will make it successful,” he said.

Rail Plans Advance

The Orange County Transportation Authority is proceeding with plans for nine daily round trips in the rail corridor between Oceanside and Los Angeles by April, 1995. Only one OCTA train currently travels north in the morning and returns south in the evening. Two round trips will be added by December, 1993, with service extended to Oceanside. Also, four new passenger depots will be built in Mission Viejo/Laguna Niguel, Tustin/North Irvine, Orange and Buena Park. Officials say service will be expanded gradually after 1993 based on the availability of facilities and ticket sales.

Stations to be built Commerce Norwalk Buena Park Orange Tustin/N. Irvine Mission Viejo/Laguna Niguel

Existing stations Fullerton Anaheim Santa Ana Irvine Spectrum San Juan Capistrano San Clemente Oceanside Source: Southern California Regional Rail Authority