On the Road, Again! : Residents of the Remote O.C. Foothills Learn to Be Creative in Their Commuting Routes

Sweat gleaming on his face as his arms and legs pump rhythmically, Randy Case is doing what he always does after completing his commute to Rancho Santa Margarita.

Instead of going home at the end of his workday, he heads straight for the new Family Fitness Center half a block from his condominium.

“I stop off here to reduce the stress of driving and my job,” he says, pumping away on a computerized exercise bicycle. “I drive a lot on my job.”

A computer salesman whose territory spans San Diego to Santa Barbara, Case is typically on the road up to four hours a day several days a week. He had just driven back from Santa Monica, although lately he’s been spending a lot of time in the San Fernando Valley.

And how does he describe the drive?

“It’s a mess,” he says. “It’s very unpredictable. Sometimes you can sail the freeway in 45 minutes; other times it might take you two hours. That’s the most frustrating part of it.”

The stress and frustration of commuting are nothing new to Orange County residents.

But residents of Rancho Santa Margarita and the other new foothill communities of South County who drive to work spend a lot more time in their cars than their counterparts in other parts of the county.

Indeed, although an overwhelming majority of foothill community residents view the area as a “very favorable” place to live--82% according to The Times Orange County Poll--living in such a remote portion of the county can be frustrating.

Nearly half of foothill community workers drive 30 minutes or more each way: 44%, or more than double the number of workers throughout the county with such long commutes. Only 38% of poll respondents spend 20 minutes or less on the road, compared to two out of three in the entire county.

The poll shows that foothill community residents are as likely as other employed South County workers to work in South County (61% to 60%), while 29% work in North or Central County, 8% work in Los Angeles County and 2% work elsewhere.

But regardless of where they work, traffic congestion during their commute is viewed by more than half (56%) of foothill community residents as a problem, with 14% calling it a “big problem.”

It’s a problem for Tom Broadbent.

The Rancho Santa Margarita resident leaves between 6 and 7 a.m. for his hour drive to work in Garden Grove, where he owns a fire extinguisher company. His drive home at night typically takes an hour and a half, “sometimes even longer.”

And then there’s the El Toro “Y,” the infamous convergence of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways and the bane of Broadbent’s commuting existence.

“It’s very bad,” Broadbent says. “Every morning and every night, that’s the only bad part of the whole commute.”

How bad is the “Y”?

Just ask Susan Lokietz, a Rancho Santa Margarita resident, who says she has sat in traffic at the “Y”--”until you figure out other ways.” Her solution? “You follow cars that seem to know what they’re doing.”

“People who live out here know all kinds of ways to avoid the El Toro ‘Y,’ and if I told you, you’d be amazed,” she says. “Like you go down Bake to Barranca and you get on the 133 and then it dumps you off at the 405 north, or you could go onto the 5 north.”

A long commute is the price residents of Rancho Santa Margarita and the new foothill communities pay for living in an area known as one of the most secluded in Orange County. But for most of these foothill residents, it’s worth it.

Says Case, 31 and single: “I moved out here because I like the area--it’s quiet, clean and the houses are affordable.” As he sees it, “the commute is the only thing that is a drawback.”

Early residents of Rancho Santa Margarita and the surrounding areas remember when the only major road in and out of the community was Santa Margarita Parkway--then a two-lane road that took them several miles to congested El Toro Road, followed by an additional five miles down to the freeway.

But the commute--at least to the freeway--has greatly improved in recent years and planners say it’s going to get even better.

Relief has come in increments.

First, Santa Margarita Parkway was widened to four and then six lanes. (That included a second bridge over Arroyo Trabuco parallel to the first, with each bridge now handling three lanes in each direction.) That took care of one of the worst bottlenecks.

Then Alicia Parkway was extended from Mission Viejo into Rancho Santa Margarita in early 1992, providing residents another access route to Interstate 5. Indeed, after the opening of Alicia Parkway, a Santa Margarita Co. study showed a 25% decline in traffic along Santa Margarita Parkway during peak hours.

And when a new stretch of Oso Parkway--in conjunction with an Antonio Parkway extension-- opened a few months later after years of red-tape delays and construction setbacks, the transportation milestone was marked with all the hoopla of a returning Olympic champion: balloons, a parade and even a blessing from a Catholic priest.

Celebrating residents enthused that they could not only get to their jobs quicker, but they also gained speedier access to hospitals and emergency services. Not to mention shopping malls and movie theaters.

“All along we recognized our obligation to get these roads built,” says Al Hollinden, a consultant who provides transportation planning for the Santa Margarita Co.

In fact, he says, the Santa Margarita Co. and a dozen other major landowners in the area are founding members of the Foothill Circulation Phasing Plan--a $250-million public-private transportation venture that is paying for the street expansions and part of the Foothill tollway.

As various roads and pieces of roads were opened, Hollinden says, “each one of them alleviated the traffic to a certain extent.” And, he says, “the same thing was happening on the other side of El Toro Road as well. Bake Parkway was extended, Lake Forest Drive was extended up to Portola Parkway and Portola Parkway itself was completed down to El Toro Road.”

In addition, he said, the extension of Alton Parkway up to Portola Parkway will be completed within the next year or two. And Oso Parkway currently is being extended from Antonio eastward, which will serve the residents at the south end of Coto de Caza.

But the completion of the Foothill tollway to the eastern edge of Rancho Santa Margarita sometime before June, 1995, could be the biggest boon of all to foothill commuters.

“At that time,” Hollinden says, “Santa Margarita people will be like 15 minutes away from Irvine or less away from the (Irvine) Spectrum, without them having to go on to the heavily congested (Interstate) 5 and the (El Toro) ‘Y.’ ”

Currently, Hollinden says, there are 8,000 trips a day on the completed half of the tollway, which opened last year. And, as he says, “that’s 8,000 trips less on the other streets.”

Hollinden says that “all the parkways and everything are designed for the ultimate population, so when the (tollway) is complete, everything will be in good shape out here.”

Of course, commuters must be willing to pay 50 cents to enter the tollway. But there’s no need to convince Lokietz, a CPA who already takes the completed portion of the Foothill tollway for her 50-minute commute to Anaheim.

“I’m one of these fast-track users of the tollway,” she says. “It takes 10 minutes off my overall commute and it’s beautiful: You’re not in bumper-to-bumper traffic or anything.”

There’s even good news for those who continue to take El Toro Road or the parkways down to the freeway.

The long-awaited widening and remodeling of the El Toro “Y,” now underway and due for completion in the summer of 1996, is expected to carry 400,000 vehicles daily. That, Caltrans officials say, is about 100,000 more than it handles today.

But given the popularity of living in South County, there will never be any getting away from the long, sometimes frustrating drives for those who have to commute to work.

Historically, says UC Irvine urban sociologist Mark Baldassare, “people in the new suburbs have put up with longer and more annoying commutes for the benefits of being farther away from the city, and certainly for people who are contemplating a move to, say, Oceanside or Moreno Valley, the new towns are very attractive alternatives.”

Commuting from the new suburbs in the hills of South County, he says, “is going to be a lot shorter and a lot less annoying than commuting from the Inland Empire or northern San Diego County, which are the other places that would give you that feeling of newness, that sense of being on the edge of the suburbs.”

How the Poll Was Done

The Times Orange County Poll was conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates. The telephone survey of 600 adult residents in Rancho Santa Margarita, Coto de Caza, Dove Canyon, Portola Hills, Foothill Ranch and Robinson Ranch was conducted Feb. 10-13 on weekday nights and weekend days. A computer-generated random sample of telephone numbers was used.

The margin of error for all respondents is plus or minus 4%. For subgroups, the error margin would be larger.

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SUNDAY: A look at the people who live in Orange County’s southern foothills--and why.

MONDAY: The recession had a crushing impact on residents, who saw their home values drop, and on many developers, who had to restructure their plans.

TUESDAY: Families are flocking to the new suburbs, where parents praise the many activities for youngsters. But for the teens, there’s not much to do.

TODAY: Living so far out means secluded neighborhoods and horrendous commutes. Though access is improving, traffic congestion remains a problem.

THURSDAY: Two-thirds of foothill residents expect to be living in the area when 1999 rolls around. But what does that future hold?

THE SOUTHERN FOOTHILLS: More Time on the Road

Nearly half of commuters in the new southern suburbs drive more than 30 minutes each way. Only 20% countywide say they commute takes as long.

* Length of commute:

Southern foothills Orange County Up to 20 minutes 38% 64% 21 to 30 minutes 18% 16% 31 to 60 minutes 36% 15% More than 60 minutes 8% 5%

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Those saying traffic congestion is a problem during commute:

Southern foothills: 56%

Orange County: 50%

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Where they work: (Southern foothills)

Work in South County: 61%

Work in North County, L.A. County, elsewhere: 39% Sources: Times Orange County Poll; 1991, 1992 and 1993 Orange County Annual Surveys, UCI