Road Work Ties Traffic, Stomachs in Knots : Transportation: Three lanes of the San Diego Freeway are closed for repaving in Fountain Valley, leading to massive delays.

The slow lane of the northbound San Diego Freeway was the only way to go Saturday, as construction along a two-mile stretch through Fountain Valley caused hourlong delays for thousands of motorists.

Caltrans had warned drivers to avoid the freeway between Magnolia Street and Beach Boulevard, but many took a chance anyway--only to sit bumper-to-bumper in the one available lane.

The traffic became so congested at one point that authorities shut down the northbound on-ramps at Harbor Boulevard and Euclid Street, said Caltrans spokeswoman Rose Orem.

But both ramps were reopened by 4:30 p.m., she said.

“A lot of people got off the freeway and used surface streets,” Orem said. “But because of that, traffic is heavier on city streets too.”

Henry Yong was among those who said he found the alternate route to be almost as frustrating as the freeway. Yong, of Coalinga, was on his way to visit some friends in Fountain Valley when he was suddenly caught in “that mess,” he said.

After it took him about 30 minutes to travel only about two miles, Yong decided to get off the freeway, grab some coffee and find a way around the bottleneck.

“The problem was, there was quite a bit of a crowd on the surface streets as well,” he said. “I guess there were many other people who had the same idea.”

The backup extended more than six miles along the San Diego Freeway, with brake-lights beginning around South Coast Plaza and MetroPointe shopping centers.

The San Diego Freeway, which is among the busiest in the county, has not had any major maintenance work for about 20 years, though an average of 200,000 cars travel on it daily, Orem said.

Workers spent the day on a resurfacing project.

“It’s long overdue,” said Orem, who added that the operation was to be completed by 5 a.m. today.

Since Friday night, all but one lane northbound and another lane southbound were closed as part of a $1.5-million project to repave that section of the freeway.

Orem said the southbound traffic was flowing smoothly, though a little slowly, Saturday.

On Friday, all but one southbound lane of the freeway between Magnolia and Beach will be closed for repaving, Orem said.

In past projects, Caltrans had kept the lanes open. But complaints poured in, including those from motorists who claimed that debris such as flying rocks had damaged their cars, officials said. After those incidents, authorities changed their policy and closed the lanes where construction was underway.

This weekend, with the lanes closed, there was a different kind of complaint--that of frustrated drivers whose weekend plans were adversely affected.

Matt Zielinski, 27, of Baltimore, was traveling from San Diego to Los Angeles when he hit the “dead-stop traffic.” To make things worse, his car had a flat tire in the middle of the jam.

“People were very nice about it,” he said. “They didn’t yell at us or anything. They even made room for us to pull over to change our tire.”

He and some friends changed the tire, got back on the freeway and headed toward a gas station at Brookhurst Street for repairs. As Zielinski thought about the prospect of getting back on the freeway, he crinkled his eyebrows in frustration.

“There’s got to be a better way, right?” said Zielinski, who was supposed to have been in Los Angeles when he discovered the flat tire in Fountain Valley.

Elsewhere in Orange County, the continuing work on the Costa Mesa Freeway and the reopening of The Shops at Mission Viejo mall also caused some traffic problems, though not as bad as those on the San Diego Freeway.

Friday was a “mad house,” but Saturday, 14 deputies in patrol cars and on motorcycles and horses helped to keep traffic flowing at the renovated mall on Crown Valley Parkway, Sheriff’s Lt. Steve Fauchier said.

“We had absolutely no problems, he said. “I think we just had a much better handle on the situation.”

Mall officials used off-site parking to ease the traffic and advised shoppers to reach the mall via the Avery Park exit, said Judy Bullockus, marketing manager for the mall.