Residents Worry About Tollway’s Effects Once It Opens

Dear Street Smart:

We live at the top of Turtle Rock in Irvine, directly across from the main toll plaza and the segment of the new San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor crossing the upper portion of Bommer Canyon. We now are faced with three stories of lights shining all night long in the main toll plaza building and the noise from construction on the road during the day. This means that the road noise from 24-hour-a-day traffic will float across the valley into our home once the road opens this week.

We have called the toll road authority repeatedly to ask about their plans to landscape this segment to minimize the noise, light and unsightliness, but they refuse to take our calls or return messages. Yet they continue to spend like drunken sailors for advertising and theirnew headquarters building in Irvine.

Can you get them to commit to plans for landscaping the roadway and toll plaza, and building sound walls to block the traffic noise, which will most certainly ruin what’s been a quiet, pastoral valley?

Jeffrey and Linda Kaufman

Irvine

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In response to similar concerns expressed by some of your neighbors, the Transportation Corridor Agencies will plant 46 15-gallon oak trees along the side of the road facing Turtle Rock within three months after the tollway opens, according to Michele Miller, an agency spokeswoman.

“We’ve had other people bring up this issue, and we want to address those concerns,” Miller said.

Noise, however, is another matter, she said.

Because the nearest home is more than a mile from the toll road, Miller said, environmental consultants have determined that the noise level will not violate state or federal standards, so no sound walls will be built.

Miller said the agency took certain steps to reduce the glare for members of your community. They installed the minimum number of lights required by Caltrans on the road and equipped them with small hanging shields designed to reduce the glare in your direction, Miller said. They also erected small dirt berms on the side of the road facing Turtle Rock to reduce the visibility of headlights.

She says she can’t explain why your calls were not returned.

“We want to have open communication with people,” Miller said. “We do try to call everyone back.”

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Dear Street Smart:

I am planning on using the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor the minute it opens up on [Thursday], since I commute between Fountain Valley and San Juan Capistrano and have already sent for and gotten my FasTrak transponder. However, there is some sort of unremovable sticker on my windshield right where the transponder is supposed to go. Will it really be OK to put it on the right side of my windshield just above the wipers?

Claudia Tropila

Fountain Valley

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The right side of the windshield will work just fine, according to Miller. In fact, she said, “We recommend that the transponder be put on the passenger’s side above the wiper in vehicles that have decals or metal identification plates” which could interfere with the transponder on the driver’s side.

The transponders, small electronic devices that allow the toll road system to automatically debit a user’s account, attach to the windshield by Velcro. Families with more than one car, Miller said, can establish a single account linked to as many as three separate transponders.

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Dear Street Smart:

If you are in the carpool lane traveling at 65 mph and there are cars behind you that are pushing you to go faster, do you have to get out of the lane and let them pass? Most cars in this lane go 70 mph or faster, exceeding the speed limit.

W.J. Polis

Dana Point

If you are driving at the speed limit, the law does not require you to pull over to let faster cars pass. On the other hand, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol said, it often is prudent to do so.

“We’ve found situations where people will actually go up and bump the car in front of them because they’re in a hurry,” Officer Joan Rivas said. “What I tell people to do when someone is really pushing them and we’re not there to give a ticket is pull out of the carpool lane for their own safety and then pull back in.”

Don’t, however, cross a double yellow line to leave the carpool lane or you will break the law yourself. Instead, Rivas said, wait until you get to a broken white line.

The only exception is when the car speeding up behind you is an emergency vehicle with red lights flashing, in which case you should immediately pull out of the car pool lane to the right no matter what lines you have to cross.

“Don’t pull into the center divider,” said Carol Kelly, another spokeswoman. “Just yield to the right.”

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 may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.