Deadly Roadway Would Be Improved to Tune of $250,000

Toll road authorities voted Thursday to improve a treacherous milelong stretch of Santiago Canyon Road that has seen more than two dozen collisions and two deaths in less than two years.

Members of the Transportation Corridor Agencies voted to spend $250,000 for the installation of storm water runoff drains and the grooving of asphalt along the dreaded stretch of roadway that runs between Jamboree Road in Orange and the Eastern tollway.

The vote follows a series of accidents that have plagued the roadway during rainy weather since the TCA realigned the road in 1998. According to California Highway Patrol records, 29 collisions have occurred on that stretch, resulting in two deaths and 22 injuries. In many of the accidents, heavy rain flooded the pavement and caused drivers to lose control and cross into the opposing lane.

In at least three accidents, injured motorists have filed suit against the county and the TCA, saying the roadway is defective. The road is owned by the county but was built by the TCA. The stretch in question is actually a portion of Chapman Avenue, but county officials call it Santiago Canyon Road because that’s what leads into and away from it.

The fix consists of installing more than 1,000 feet of drain gratings in the median, said Ken R. Smith, the county’s chief engineer. The footwide gratings would empty into an existing drain pipe, Smith said. Tire traction would also be improved by scoring the surface of the road, he said.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors must sign off on the project at its meeting Tuesday.

County Supervisor and toll authority member Todd Spitzer said the decision ends a year or more of bickering between the toll agency and the county over engineering remedies and funding.

While the legal issue of fault in the lawsuits has yet to be decided, Spitzer said, the two agencies had to act on the matter.

“We’re not going to wait for a court resolution in a matter like this. To not come up with a solution as fast as possible would be intolerable,” Spitzer said.

Two years ago, the state spent $2 million to repave 10 miles of the San Joaquin Hills tollway after a rash of rain-related accidents resulting in 13 injuries and one death. The new overlay was expected to reduce rain-related hydroplaning and skid accidents by up to 50%, transportation officials said at the time.

“That was a different problem,” Mike Stockstill, a spokesman for the Transportation Corridor Agencies which operates the toll road, said Thursday. The 1998 San Joaquin Hills project and the current Santiago Canyon Road project, he said, involve “two separate issues, two separate contractors and two separate owners.”

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Runoff Solution

Storm water runoff drains will be installed along a flood-prone stretch of Santiago Canyon Road at a cost of $250,000