Work Complete on El Toro Y Project

The three-year commotion at the convergence of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways was calmed Friday as work crews removed barricades and declared the El Toro Y project complete.

Work was done by 10:15 a.m.--three months and about $70 million under budget. For the $166 million spent, commuters get carpool lanes, elevated bridges, ramps and 26 lanes at the widest point. All that’s left to do is roadside landscaping and new signs.

“It looks like something out of the ‘Jetsons.’ It’s very space-age to me,” said Kathy Shephard, 45, of Mission Viejo.

Friday’s opening of towering northbound carpool lanes did not bring sudden relief, project officials said. Traffic has been easing over three years as new ramps and lanes open.

Traffic-fighting additions include exits at Irvine Center Drive, bridge access to the San Diego Freeway from the Santa Ana Freeway, elevated roads at Bake Parkway and improved ramps at Lake Forest Drive and El Toro Road.

The recently opened San Joaquin Hills tollway, an alternate route between the Costa Mesa Freeway and Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano, also is helping uncork the bottleneck caused at the Y where Irvine and Lake Forest meet.

About 400,000 vehicles a day will be able to use the reconditioned Y, about 100,000 more than when the project was started in 1993. Easier merging is expected to make it safer.

“It just makes for a better commute in that area and it really brings the whole county together,” said John Standiford, spokesman for the Orange County Transportation Authority. Friday was “really the last piece of the entire construction project. It’s great news for anyone who travels in that area, because we have created a lot more choices for them.”

Jerry Quindry, 45, is of that set, commuting from Huntington Beach to his job as a civil engineer in Lake Forest.

“I am glad it’s over,” he said of the road work.