Resume Speed: End of Construction Ahead

It’s been a tense four years of dust, demolition and detours, but the largest freeway construction project in Orange County’s history--the $1.1-billion overhaul of the Santa Ana Freeway between the Orange Crush and Los Angeles County--is nearing completion with only weeks to spare, officials say.

With Disney’s new California Adventure theme park expected to draw 7 million new visitors to the area early next year, and with the patience of thousands of business owners and residents worn thin from around-the-clock construction, transportation officials say they are relieved to announce that the bulk of the work will be completed by December.

Already, officials are preparing to open up four new traffic lanes--two in each direction--between the Crush and Santa Ana Street, a step officials say will greatly relieve the chronic congestion.

“There’s a sense of relief the project is finally near completion,” said Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly, who also is an Orange County Transportation Authority board member. “If the project had fallen behind schedule, that would have been a real problem.”

The rest of the mammoth I-5 North Improvement Project, which will widen the 9 1/2-mile stretch of freeway from six lanes to 10 and reconfigure numerous surface street approaches and ramps, is scheduled to be fully completed in the spring. Officials say the upgrades will nearly double traffic capacity as the freeway snakes through the heart of Orange County commerce and tourism. Disneyland, Edison Field, Arrowhead Pond, the Anaheim Convention Center and the Block at Orange are but a few of the anticipated beneficiaries of the streamlined freeway.

Currently, 190,000 vehicles a day course through this jammed artery, and engineers say the upgrades will accommodate 360,000 vehicles a day.

Acknowledging the stresses that construction has wrought on businesses, residents and commuters, Caltrans and Orange County transportation officials said they hoped citizens would take comfort in the knowledge that the project appeared as if it would be completed slightly under budget. Much of it has been funded through Measure M, the half-cent transportation sales tax Orange County voters approved in 1990.

However, some of those who own businesses in the shadow of the project said they were just glad it would end on time.

“Everything’s torn up. It’s a mess out there,” lamented Augie DeSouza, who owns a barber school blocks away from the freeway in Anaheim. “I figure it’s taken away about 40% of my business. It’s a necessary evil though. I don’t think business can help but pick up after the improvements. The congestion we had here before was a real problem.”

The project follows the widening of the southern half of the Santa Ana Freeway from the El Toro “Y” to Dana Point. That project cost $166 million and took two years. An earlier project, costing about $579 million, widened the freeway from the El Toro Y through Santa Ana.

While the upgrades are likely to improve matters around the notorious intersection of the Orange, Garden Grove and Santa Ana freeways, it is not likely that they will improve matters to the extent that people will stop referring to it as the Orange Crush.

However, Caltrans spokeswoman Rose Orem said the improvements would greatly streamline traffic at such freeway junctures as State College Boulevard, Katella Avenue, Harbor Boulevard, Brookhurst Street and Euclid Avenue.

Because two of the project’s additional traffic lanes are carpool lanes, Orem said that carpoolers will be able to drive 38 miles of uninterrupted carpool lanes between Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point and Beach Boulevard in Buena Park.

Another design feature, the so-called “Disney flyover,” will lift carpool traffic from the Santa Ana Freeway, transfer it over numerous lanes of traffic via a bridge and deposit it on Disneyland Drive, just blocks from the theme park’s massive parking garage. Also, just a few access ramps to the north, a similar overcrossing now makes the freeway fully accessible from Euclid Street.

Khalid Bazmi, a senior transportation engineer at Caltrans, said project managers were fortunate enough to see work on several interchanges completed well beyond schedule. In one case, workers converted a highway overpass at Katella Avenue to a freeway underpass in five working days. Engineers thought it would take a month. “That is making very good time,” Bazmi said. “The majority of the work is done at night and that’s not very easy.”

OCTA Chairwoman Laurann Cook said the I-5 North Improvement Project would be the last large-scale project funded through Measure M.

Because of the jurisdictional change, the improved Santa Ana Freeway will suddenly drop from 10 lanes to six at the Los Angeles County border. Orange County transportation officials said they were unsure whether the border lane drop would cause problems.

“It’s our hope that the project will continue through Los Angeles County,” Cook said. “We all have to realize that road projects don’t end at county borders.”

The Big Finish

After more than four years of construction, the north leg of the Santa Ana Freeway improvement project is nearing completion. Adding a carpool lane and a general purpose lane in each direction, construction crews will wrap up most of the work on the 9.5-mile project by the end of the year according to Caltrans.

Source: Khalid Bazmi, Senior transportation engineer, Caltrans

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times