Freeway Lanes an Option for OCTA

Reversing an earlier decision, the Orange County Transportation Authority voted this week to include the option of adding regular freeway lanes as it considers ways to ease traffic congestion in the county’s most heavily traveled transportation corridor.

The action by the authority’s board of directors is expected to delay until sometime next year a decision on how to improve traffic flow along the 28-mile-long, 6-mile-wide swath from Fullerton to Irvine, officials said.

“It is obvious that we need to study mix-flow lanes,” OCTA director Don Saltarelli said Monday. “It seems to me that we would be under tremendous scrutiny if we do not look at this alternative.”

OCTA officials, who commissioned a major study two years ago on the future of the Fullerton-Irvine corridor, early on eliminated the option of building more freeways or adding regular lanes, saying that such an option would lack public support and would not reduce auto emissions.

A citizen group called Drivers for Highway Safety, however, disagreed, arguing that adding more freeways would be the most cost-effective way of improving transportation.

“To not study all of the alternatives would be a serious misuse of public funds,” Wayne King, a member of the group, told the board this week in arguing for the inclusion. “If all of these things are shoved under the rug, how will this board look?”

Saltarelli said he decided to propose added lanes after discussions with Drivers for Highway Safety members.

The $3-million Major Investment Study, completed in June, suggests improving bus service, adding more carpool lanes to existing freeways or building an elevated light-rail system on new track between Fullerton and Irvine as possible solutions.

The transportation study is to be the foundation for a plan to spend about $340 million in Measure M sales-tax funds earmarked for developing rail systems.

Originally, OCTA officials had said that a final decision on the matter would be made in September.

With inclusion of the freeway option, they said, the decision could be delayed by up to seven months as staff members analyze the data.