Those Endless Freight Trains Don’t Follow a Schedule

Dear Street Smart:

Do you know whether there is a published schedule of freight trains that cross Imperial Highway where it is intersected by Orangethorpe Avenue/Esperanza Road? Trains of more than 100 cars seem to pass through during the busiest part of a rush hour, and some advance notice might help alleviate the traffic backup on Esperanza.

Furthermore, why can’t cars turning left from Esperanza to southbound Imperial Highway ever get the first green light after the train passes through, especially during the morning rush hour when cars are backed up past Fairmont Boulevard?

Royce Orleans Hurst

Yorba Linda

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway does not publish a timetable for freight trains because they don’t run on set schedules, said Bob Harper, a company spokesman. Rather, they run as business dictates.

Rose Orem, spokeswoman for Caltrans, which runs the traffic signals there, said the first green light after a freight train crosses always goes to north- and southbound Imperial Highway, because the biggest traffic backups are there.

Dear Street Smart:

During the evening rush hours, Imperial Highway between Santa Ana Canyon Road and Orangethorpe Avenue is a real mess. The cause is the traffic lights at Santa Ana Canyon Road and La Palma Avenue.

Many drivers getting off the Riverside Freeway and others southbound on Imperial want to turn left on Santa Ana Canyon Road. The distance from the freeway to Santa Ana Canyon Road is small and the left-turn light is short. Some drivers cannot completely cross the exit ramp intersection, blocking the way for drivers turning left from the exit ramp to northbound Imperial.

At La Palma, drivers southbound on Imperial turning left to eastbound La Palma are given an extended green light, causing northbound Imperial traffic to back up to the Riverside Freeway exit ramp. The majority of cars using this portion of Imperial Highway will go east on Santa Ana Canyon Road, La Palma Avenue or Esperanza Road.

This problem is further worsened by the usual traffic jam on the eastbound Riverside Freeway, which usually begins at Imperial Highway. If it were not for the Riverside Freeway problems, many drivers would continue on to Weir Canyon Road.

Using the Lakeview Avenue exit is somewhat better since most cars are coming from the Riverside Freeway, but making that left turn onto Lakeview is difficult because the two traffic lights on Santa Ana Canyon Road are close together.

Edward Heins

Yorba Linda

Traffic jams in this area have been a problem for well over a decade because the traffic volume has grown so much that it exceeds the capacity originally intended for this freeway, said Rose Orem. Signal coordination on local streets would not significantly reduce the congestion, she said.

Drivers trying to bypass freeway congestion use parallel roads such as La Palma and Santa Ana Canyon and overtax these local streets, Orem said.

But there is some good news. Construction of an express toll road on the Riverside Freeway is two-thirds done, Orem said. This project will add two lanes in each direction from the Orange Freeway to beyond the Riverside county line.

The new lanes are expected to greatly relieve the congestion on local streets as well as the freeway, Orem said. Caltrans estimates that the lanes will be open by the end of 1995.

Dear Street Smart:

What determines the timing of metered traffic lights on freeway on-ramps? In my driving around Orange County, it appears that the majority change on a two-to three-second interval.

But the on-ramp from Jeffrey Road/University Drive in Irvine to the San Diego Freeway is six to seven seconds, no matter what the traffic is like on the freeway.

And only one car is allowed through at a time (except for car-pool cars). Why is this?

There is always a very long backup when the meter is on during rush-hour traffic, even when the San Diego Freeway is moving quite nicely. Please explain.

Penny Joss Fletcher

Mission Viejo

The criteria used for determining the interval timing for ramp meters in Orange County is based on the volume of traffic at the ramp as well as the upstream and downstream traffic on the freeway, Orem said. The timing can vary from four seconds to 20 seconds.

Caltrans engineers checked out the ramp meter at the Jeffrey/University on-ramp and determined it was set correctly for the present conditions, Orem said.

The purpose of the ramp metering is to control the flow of oncoming traffic to the freeway by balancing the demand and capacity. The fact that the freeway is “moving quite nicely” is an indication that metering is working, Orem said.