Want to Know About Highway Traffic? Point and Click

A certain highway in Orange County has had a lot of heavy traffic of late.

But you won’t find it on any Thomas Guide; it’s the information superhighway. Just use your home computer to dial up Caltrans’ local home page on the Internet’s World Wide Web and, voila, you now can be privy to the same traffic condition map that the CHP relies on.

The map, updated every minute, shows all freeways in Orange County and the speed of traffic on each. Green dots mean you’ll be on time. Red ones mean figure out another route.

“It’s our way of taking advantage of the fact that we’re moving into the 21st Century,” said Caltrans spokesman Albert Miranda. “There are lots of new technologies out there.”

The new technologies began evolving some years ago when Caltrans started embedding electronic traffic sensors in the pavement of the region’s freeway system. Now numbering in the thousands, the tiny sensors send the speed of traffic to a central computer at Caltrans’ Santa Ana headquarters. There, data is projected onto computer maps, which had been available only to the California Highway Patrol, Caltrans and emergency personnel.

Last year, Caltrans began making the electronic traffic-flow maps available to home computer users by creating a page on the World Wide Web. But Orange County residents could only call up maps from other areas and general information. Then, four months ago, the agency’s Orange County district put up its own page, which last month attracted 1,700 callers.

“Lots of people have home computers out there,” Miranda said. “This is our way of having more direct communication with the people we serve.”

Those aiming their web browsers at the Orange County site (https://www.dot.ca.gov/dist12) can find a colorful map showing minute-by-minute freeway conditions. A key explains the six colors, from green, signifying a traffic flow of 55 m.p.h., or more to red, indicating that traffic is moving at a crawl.

For Bob Posert, a software engineer who commutes daily from Mission Viejo to Costa Mesa, the map has alerted him more than once that he needs to leave work half an hour early to reach his son’s day-care center on time.

“It’s pretty useful,” said Posert, 34. “You can see how long it’s going to take you to get home.”

Tom Cripps, a county employee who lives in Seal Beach and works in Santa Ana, agreed.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Cripps, 58, who checks out the map several times a week to decide on the best route home. “I think it’s a good demonstration of the potential value of the Internet.”

He does have one caveat. Generally speaking, Cripps said, he would rather check the map at work before leaving for home than deal with it in the morning.

“In the morning,” he said, “it’s easier to just turn on the radio.”

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition.