Roadblock Is on Ballot in Yorba Linda

A dozen Yorba Linda residents have launched a ballot initiative to block the widening of Imperial Highway, a project authorities say is critical to relieving traffic congestion and ensuring continued growth in the region.

If the November city ballot measure passes, Yorba Linda and five of its neighboring cities could lose tens of millions of dollars in state and federal funding, and the region a critical relief valve for the growing press of traffic from the Riverside Freeway into Orange County.

The initiative on the Yorba Linda ballot calls for halting plans to widen and improve Imperial Highway along four miles through the city. It would also prevent the construction of 1.6 miles of berms and sound walls, each 11 feet high, which critics complain would cut Yorba Linda in half.

The plans are part of a $55-million project, in the works for more than a decade, to widen Imperial Highway along its entire 13-mile length, from Santa Ana Canyon Road in Anaheim to the Los Angeles County line in La Habra.

The Orange County Transportation Authority allocated the money for the highway widening as part of its Smart Street program, designed to smooth traffic along surface streets. Transportation authorities say the project is critical to handling growth in the region, and the increasing number of commuters from Riverside County who use Imperial Highway to get to Orange County freeways.

But OCTA officials say if the measure passes, the agency may pull out of the project altogether. If it does, that would mean canceling almost $10 million in improvements not yet made to the thoroughfare in Fullerton, Anaheim, Brea and La Habra.

“This is important to us,” said Dave Elbaum, director of planning and development for OCTA.

“We’ve invested a lot of money. We’ve gotten a lot of cities on board. We haven’t asked any of the cities to do anything that isn’t in their general plan. We said, ‘OK, anybody who has any concerns about this, let us know.’ And here we are today, scratching our heads. If this doesn’t go, the money is lost, so is all the planning along the way, all the consensus building, all the commitments. We’re simply not going to do it.”

The improvements are funded largely through tax revenue generated by Measure M, the initiative passed by Orange County voters in 1990 that funnels sales tax money to road improvement projects in the county. Under the terms of the measure, OCTA gives the money for projects it deems necessary to cities that participate in the improvements. Those cities also are eligible to apply for Measure M money for other projects.

But if a city pulls out of the project, as the initiative seeks to force Yorba Linda to do, it is obligated to refund all Measure M funds already spent, and is ineligible for future money.

The upshot for Yorba Linda: If the highway is not widened, OCTA has warned the city, it will be obligated to pay back $35 million the agency gave it to build the project, and would be ineligible for $8 million more in funds the transportation authority had promised it over the next decade.

For the other cities along the thoroughfare, the consequences also could be grim. OCTA officials say it is unlikely they would ask for refund of money for improvements already completed. In Brea and La Habra, more than $5 million of the Measure M funds for the project have been spent.

But planned improvements would likely not go forward.

“OCTA is not out to cancel the project just for the sake of canceling the project, but the investment needs to be a wise one. There are other projects out here to be funded,” said Paul Rodriguez, senior transportation analyst with the agency.

“Is it appropriate to spend $20 million sprinkled around the rest of the facility and not improve the Yorba Linda portion of it? Probably not.”

Fearful that OCTA will make good on its threat, Yorba Linda officials are launching plans to challenge the initiative in court if it passes. Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer is planning several community forums on the issue this fall, and OCTA officials have sent a letter to Yorba Linda’s public works director warning about the loss of future Measure M funds if Yorba Linda pulls out.

Officials in neighboring cities said they were unaware of the ballot measure and of its potential impact.

“It remains to be seen whether the decision in Yorba Linda will be the life or death of regional improvements on Imperial,” Brea City Manager Frank Benest said. “It’s an open question.”

The initiative is the product of a group of about a dozen slow-growth advocates in Yorba Linda, people interested in preserving the relatively quiet lifestyle of the city of 60,000 that is still dotted with hundreds of miles of horse trails.

Calling themselves OUCH, for Organization of Unified Homeowners, the residents chose an attorney among them to draft the initiative, and in several months gathered the 5,000 signatures to get it on the ballot.

Since then, the residents have done little open campaigning. In fact, some of the group’s leaders maintain that a small voter turnout would be more likely to lead to passage of the measure.

The highway widening will turn an already busy street into something resembling a freeway, the residents say. They are particularly critical of the planned berms and sound walls that would rise, freeway style, on both sides of the highway in places.

“This is a critical moment for Yorba Linda. What’s at stake is whether this will be a full-blown metropolitan area with a freeway through it, or the semirural town we all came here to enjoy,” said Jack Majors, 80, a retired Orange County probation officer who has been fighting changes in Yorba Linda since he moved there 38 years ago.

“There’s never been a threat like this. It will split the community. People will ram through Yorba Linda and never see it.”

The fight has erupted into fierce exchanges at City Council meetings in Yorba Linda for months, and divided the council into two camps--three members who favor the highway widening project against two who don’t.

“These people are dinosaurs who don’t want to come to terms with what the present situation is in our county,” said Councilman John M. Gullixson, who along with city planners backs the OCTA plan. “This county needs arterial highways. We’re just a neighbor among a group of neighbors, and this road goes right through the middle of all those communities.”

In November, Gullixson and another council member who favors the widening are up for reelection. They are forming their own political action committee to raise money to fight the initiative.

History is solidly on the side of those who favor the street improvements.

In 1967, Yorba Linda’s leaders signed off on a general plan that zoned much of the city for suburban-style development, and called for building the infrastructure--streets, sewer and water improvements--to make that development possible.

Since then, successive city councils have endorsed the plan, which includes widening Imperial Highway, the state thoroughfare that runs right through the middle of town.

Little by little, the development has gone in, much of it predicated on the plans to expand the highway. Several other tracts, among them the abandoned oil fields bought by Shell Oil and slated for 2,100 homes and a rolling meadow owned by a fast-growing Quaker church, are slated to be built over soon.

Last year, more than a decade after first endorsing the highway-widening plan, all the cities along Imperial Highway formally signed on to it. Along with Yorba Linda, the cities are Brea, La Habra, Anaheim, Fullerton and Placentia.

The plans call for widening Imperial to six lanes along all but a two-mile portion of the freeway that runs through Yorba Linda. That stretch, the Richard M. Nixon Freeway, is now two lanes and would be expanded to four.

Under the plan, cities along the highway, using Measure M funds, would do the widening, coordinate traffic signals and build special turn lanes, medians and sound walls. The speed limit along the highway would be raised from 40 to 50 mph along most of its length.

Traffic on Imperial Highway is projected to increase along with the development. The city of Yorba Linda estimates that 28,000 to 39,000 cars drive along the thoroughfare each day. The city expects traffic to grow to between 32,000 and 44,000 cars per day by 2004.

“If we’re going to be a part of Orange County and a part of this region, we have the obligation of accepting traffic just like other cities accept our traffic,” said Roy Stephenson, the city’s director of public works.

“If people want to pretend we’re not a city and we’re not in Orange County, they can go ahead. But if they want to keep Yorba Linda pristine, it’s too late.”

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Widening Imperial Highway

A group of Yorba Linda residents object to the Orange County Transportation Authority’s plan to widen Imperial Highway to up to six lanes. The project also calls for high berms and sound walls along 1.6 miles of the road in the center of the city. A local initiative on the November ballot could bring a halt to the expansion effort.

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Proposed elements

A portion of Imperial Highway would be widened from two to four lanes in Yorba Linda. Widening and position of sound walls and berms vary along the route.

Source: City of Yorba Linda, Caltrans , Orange County Transportation Authority