I-5 Will Widen at County Line

A tough two-mile stretch of the Santa Ana Freeway in north Orange County near the county line will be widened from six to 10 lanes, potentially pushing the notorious crush-hour bottleneck into Los Angeles County.

The Orange County Transportation Authority agreed Monday to spend $250 million on the road-widening job, which would run north from the Riverside Freeway to the Los Angeles County line.

The roadwork is part of a grander $1.25-billion widening plan that includes the two-mile stretch in Orange County and 13 more miles of the freeway from the county line to the Long Beach Freeway in Los Angeles County.

But as it stands, only Orange County transportation officials have firmly agreed to the construction work. The work in Orange County is expected to begin by 2004 and take up to two years to complete.

“The goal is to move this bottleneck as far north as possible, well beyond the county line,” said Cindy Quon, an OCTA project development manager.

The bottleneck actually has been created by widening projects and roadwork to the south in Orange County, said officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles. In recent years, the Santa Ana Freeway has been widened from Dana Point north to its junction with the Riverside Freeway.

“The problem is, this opening up has funneled much more traffic to Los Angeles County, and it’s caused chronic congestion,” said Marta Maestas, an MTA project manager.

More than 200,000 vehicles each day travel the dreaded stretch of the Santa Ana Freeway, which narrows from 12 to six lanes north of the Riverside Freeway in Orange County.

By agreeing to the widening Monday, OCTA officials scrapped an earlier temporary fix that would have added one carpool lane in each direction on Orange County’s two miles of the targeted freeway.

That plan was abandoned when OCTA received a $125-million grant from the governor’s Traffic Congestion Relief Program. An equal amount will come from Orange County’s Measure M transportation tax funds.

Despite the optimism about the looming improvements, OCTA officials acknowledged that the project faces numerous hurdles that could inflate costs. Among those problems are elevated ground water, and right-of-way conflicts with rail routes, businesses and even residences.

Such anticipated conflicts are partly responsible for the decision to widen the freeway from six to 10 lanes, instead of pushing for 12 lanes. OCTA board member and Buena Park City Councilman Art Brown said he and officials from five Los Angeles cities fought the 12-lane plan.

“Basically, they were threatening to wipe out our major economic benefits by taking land from businesses along the freeway,” Brown said. “It would have been devastating.”

The Los Angeles County cities that protested the 12-lane plan are Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, La Mirada, Downey and Commerce.

* SUDDEN TRAFFIC PRIORITY

OCTA puts Riverside Freeway congestion on front burner. B5