Countywide : OK on ‘Super Street’ Report Expected

The County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve this morning an environmental report that would set the stage for converting a stretch of Katella Avenue into a $55-million “super street.”

The plan has met with some resistance from residents and business owners along the street’s 14.5-mile route, which includes five cities between the San Gabriel River Freeway in Los Alamitos and the Costa Mesa Freeway in Orange.

The county’s Planning Commission has already approved the massive project’s environmental impact report on a 4-0 vote. Stan Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Transit Authority, said Monday: “That’s a pretty strong clue of where this is going.”

County supervisors will hear a staff report on the environmental impact report and then vote on it at the end of their 9:30 meeting this morning at the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana.

Approval would clear the way for the county, working with affected cities and the OCTA, to begin design work on the project. Officials hope to begin construction within two years.

The project would include road widening, parking restrictions, bus turnouts, concrete medians and synchronized signals. Transportation officials bill the “super street” as a safe, 45-m.p.h. alternative to the county’s clogged freeways.

Portions of Beach Boulevard are already under construction as a “super street,” and Katella Avenue is considered one of the highest priorities among a network of nearly two dozen targeted street expansions, encompassing 220 miles of roadway. Funding would come from Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for traffic improvements approved by voters in November, 1990.

Some residents and business people have complained about the Katella Avenue plan, saying they don’t see a congestion problem now and that they fear a loss of customers or business property in the future. The plan would also likely mean the county would exercise its right of eminent domain to buy out some properties along the super-street route, officials said.