The Answer Woman Is In to Field All Those Roadway Questions

It would seem the job from hell.

Imagine being the only soul on the answering end of a Caltrans hotline for people with complaints or questions about Orange County traffic, freeways, detours or road construction.

Wendy Werve, 26, the state agency’s one-woman answer line, gets it all: the screamers and the lost, the reasonable drivers with reasonable questions and the angry in search of a punching bag.

She has a philosophy.

“My dad used to say that you can’t have a one-sided fight; you can’t have people screaming at you if you’re not screaming back. That’s helped me a lot.”

The hotline [(714) 724-2077] was established in 1988, originally to answer the public’s questions about the widening of the Santa Ana Freeway.

But today, Werve’s job, as she sees it, is to try to answer whatever questions they throw at her.

Recently, for instance, one caller asked what kind of flowers were planted near the Harbor Boulevard offramp of the San Diego Freeway. Another worried about the effect of a freeway construction project on nearby businesses. And a third wanted directions to Las Vegas.

“I pulled out my road atlas and gave him directions,” she said. “But I told him to double-check with the Auto Club.”

And over the summer, Werve said, she got several calls from future brides inquiring about expected freeway conditions at the times of their weddings.

“That’s when I get the most personal--talking to the brides,” she said.

Werve says she often gets flurries of calls when new freeway construction projects begin.

The widening of the 17th Street bridge across the Costa Mesa Freeway that began in July, for instance, generated a flood of calls from irate merchants, residents and drivers.

“They aren’t trying to be pests,” Werve said of her callers. “They really just don’t know where to go.”

To answer questions, Werve consults a variety of sources, including the collection of highway maps strewn across her desk, Caltrans news releases and road-closure notices, and bulletins supplied by contractors.

When she doesn’t know the answer, she calls someone who does.

And when people appear to want to vent more than listen to an answer, the unflappable answer woman simply listens and promises to pass their concerns on to the proper authorities, which she eventually does.

“It’s nice to talk to people,” Werve said. “It’s interesting to hear what they have to say.”

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters might be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, fax him at (714) 966-7711, or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters might be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.