City Considers Funding for Interchange

Costa Mesa city officials were to vote Monday night on funding that would allow work to begin on an ambitious $107-million project to unclog the interchange between the San Diego and Costa Mesa freeways.

The city lacks about $7 million of the $20.2 million it had promised for untangling the snarled freeway ramps near South Coast Plaza.

The issue was on the agenda for Monday’s City Council meeting but was scheduled for discussion after several other matters in a session that continued late into the night.

Approval of the funds would mean that unclogging a bottleneck at one of the state’s busiest freeway junctions may go forward as planned, with bids going out in May and work beginning as soon as the end of the year.

Failure of a proposal by city planners to make up the shortfall would jeopardize work that county transportation officials say would be one of their most significant efforts to relieve congestion.

Either way, the next step depends on the Orange County Transportation Authority board, scheduled to meet Monday. Board members last month had backed off a hard-line approach recommended by transit planners, which would have forced Costa Mesa to commit its share by Monday or pay for the redesign of the project at an estimated cost of $500,000 to $800,000.

OCTA and Costa Mesa agreed in 1994 that if either party failed to meet the schedule, it would be responsible for paying the redesign costs.

Plans for the project call for two carpool-to-carpool lane connectors, one of which is already underway; and street improvements near the busy South Coast Plaza shopping area.

Costa Mesa has struggled to meet the cost because it also wants to add on the northbound San Diego Freeway an offramp at Avenue of the Arts, an onramp at Anton Avenue and an elevated offramp at Bristol Street. The cost is projected at about $20 million. The city has set aside about $13 million in grants and savings toward that total.

Orange County transportation officials have said they have federal funding lined up for the project already and want to begin the work as soon as possible.