Caltrans Is Accused of Fabricating Safety Data

Operators of the 91 Express Lanes in Orange County charged Tuesday that Caltrans concocted a story about safety problems on the Riverside Freeway to sneak through a road-widening project that state officials knew they couldn’t justify.

“Caltrans has fabricated the safety data,” said Christopher Garrett, a San Diego attorney who represents California Private Transportation Co., which operates the toll lanes that run along the freeway median for 10 miles from Anaheim to the Riverside County border.

“I have never found anyone at Caltrans who will now say those figures are accurate,” Garrett said.

Caltrans officials declined to comment on the charges, except to say that they have started an internal review to find out what numbers were used to prepare a 1997 traffic safety report and subsequent reports in 1999 that showed a substantial increase in accidents--up to 124%--after the toll lanes were built.

A separate Times analysis of state accident records showed that injury accidents had increased by nearly a third along the stretch next to the toll lanes in the three years since they opened. Over that same three-year period, national and statewide accident rates remained flat.

State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) said that outside experts will independently sort through the numbers to find out whether there is a safety problem.

Dunn will attempt to get answers before Tuesday’s special joint hearing of the Assembly and Senate transportation committees. The Sacramento hearing was called to review Caltrans’ role in the settlement of a $100-million lawsuit brought by the toll operator to block the road improvements.