El Toro Y Backup Tests Drivers’ Patience

The massive, four-year El Toro Y improvement project, aimed to cure chronic traffic congestion at the confluence of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways, is nearing completion, but motorists’ frustration with the seemingly endless road work is a high as ever.

“I don’t fight the traffic anymore--I just don’t use the freeway,” said Toni Ershek of Laguna Niguel, shopping at the Mission Viejo Freeway Center this week. “You get tired of it.”

A big gripe among motorists is that several offramps along the same stretch of road were closed for widening earlier this summer and are still shut down.

Caltrans and Orange County Transportation Authority officials for the $166-million joint project are asking drivers to be patient just a little longer. By the end of September, transportation officials promised this week, ramp construction will be completed.

“We know how construction has an impact on drivers,” said John Standiford, a spokesman for OCTA. “But now we’re getting to the end. What you’re really seeing is are the last major components of construction.”

After the ramps reopen, there will be just one more phase--a carpool connection between the two freeways--before the project is finished in January.

That news hasn’t put an end to drivers’ complaints about the number of offramps closed at the same time.

“What you’ve got is backup from the offramps being closed on top of all the backup from the construction,” said William Jones of Mission Viejo.

Construction crews closed the northbound El Toro Road exit at the same time they narrowed to just one lane the Lake Forest Road exit, the next offramp after El Toro Road, he said. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

Traffic engineers for South County cities say they have heard complaints but argue that the closures made sense.

“This work was going to happen at one point or another,” said Shirley Land, traffic engineer for Mission Viejo. “The key thing is we’re starting to get toward the end of construction.”

Standiford said the offramp closures were done concurrently to save time and money.

“We bunched them together to minimize the over-duration of the project,” he said. “By planning it this way, it also means it costs less to do than bringing contractors back every few months.”

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Ramps Redux

The following I-5 Freeway ramps will reopen by the end of September:

1. Southbound onramp from eastbound Lake Forest Drive

2. Southbound offramp to El Toro Road

3. Southbound onramp from westbound Alicia Parkway

4. North- and southbound onramps from eastbound Oso Parkway

5. Southbound onramp from eastbound Crown Valley Parkway

6. Northbound onramp from westbound Avery Parkway

Source: CalTrans