COSTA MESA : Bristol Street Ramp Improvements Funded

Shoppers will have easier access to South Coast Plaza when the city completes improvements to ramps connecting Bristol Street to the San Diego Freeway.

The City Council this week approved spending more than $3 million to redesign the on- and off-ramps and to widen the Bristol Street bridge.

“We have been needing to do this for a long time,” said Peter Naghavi, city transportation services manager. “That is one of the busiest intersections in the county and probably the very busiest during the Christmas shopping season.”

Traffic congestion has grown worse as new office buildings have gone up in the area. After years of securing state and federal money for the new ramps and bridge, city officials said, construction will finally begin in mid-July.

The Costa Mesa Freeway will also get some much-needed attention this summer. The council allocated money to build a ramp linking the southbound Costa Mesa Freeway to the southbound Corona del Mar Freeway.

Drivers must exit the Costa Mesa Freeway and take surface streets to link up to the Corona del Mar Freeway going south.

Bill Morris, Costa Mesa’s director of public services, said at Monday’s council meeting that “for unknown reasons” Caltrans never built on-ramps connecting the two freeways in those directions.