Freeway Fete Marks End of 40 Months of Commuter Woes

It was a blessed day for Amber Salazar, who milled around a Fullerton shopping center Saturday for an only-in-Southern-California kind of celebration: the end of freeway construction.

The Fullerton woman wasn’t quite sure how to celebrate the moment. But three years of closed lanes, dust and endless orange cones along the Artesia and Riverside freeways begged for some kind of closure, she said.

And so she spent the morning with other commuters at a fair, sponsored by county and state transportation agencies, at the Metrocenter mall in Fullerton.

“I feel a lot of relief. It’s strange to have [an event] for this, but the freeways have been maddening for so long, I thought it was important to do something when it’s all over,” said Salazar, 31, who brought her husband and year-old child to the fair. “I used to enjoy driving to see my family who live in L.A. I can start enjoying it again.”

The detour signs came down last week after 40 months of road work on the freeways--some of the busiest in the county--easing commuters’ driving times and making it easier for residents to get around.

The project, which cost $180 million, added carpool lanes along 11.5 miles of freeway between the Los Angeles County line and the Orange Freeway, a direct carpool connector at the Riverside-Orange freeway interchange, and a connector road to alleviate traffic near Disneyland.

Orange County Transportation Authority officials said they have been bombarded with calls from commuters who expressed relief the construction is done.

“People are calling us saying their commute times have been cut in half,” said Cara Veale, a spokeswoman for OCTA. She said the fair, which lasted from 9:30 a.m. to about noon and included a robot for children to ride, was “our way of saying thank you for being patient,” she said.

The unusual event drew several dozen people, attracted by balloons and two large, digital, freeway-condition signs that flashed “All Lanes Open.”

The hassles aren’t entirely over, though. Construction on the Santa Ana Freeway and on nearby Anaheim surface streets continues. Indeed, the Artesia and Riverside freeway project was the fourth of six major freeway improvements that have been funded by Measure M, the half-cent county sales tax passed in 1990 for transportation projects.

At the fair, some commuters said traffic had made it so difficult to go to the Metrocenter shopping area that they simply avoided it; several said it had been so long since they visited that they hadn’t even realized it was renovated and repainted last year.

Bus driver Doug Dunlevy, 57, of Anaheim said the last few years have been miserable for commuters in the area. Dunlevy spends 10 hours a day on the road--although mostly in Whittier, where he works--and said that even minor delays, if they happen daily, are particularly trying.

“I remember one day I went to my first [bus] stop and the road was closed. Let me tell you: The three worst words in the world to me are ‘Road Construction Ahead,’ ” he said. “It really felt like the whole world was under construction. I’m glad it’s over.”