Irvine Co. Gift to Come With Traffic Impact

The Irvine Co.’s gift of 11,000 acres of open space will have a dramatic side effect: development and traffic will be so reduced that some long-planned streets and major road extensions might not be built.

Daily auto trips would drop from an estimated 500,000 to 72,000 by eliminating development on the land to be set aside in northeastern Orange County, according to a memo Orange County Transportation Authority chief officer Arthur Healy sent Thursday to board members.

As a result, proposed multimillion-dollar extensions to roads in unincorporated county areas and in four cities--Orange, Anaheim, Irvine and Tustin--will no longer be needed, Healy concluded.

“The area to be impacted by the changes is huge, ranging from [the Riverside Freeway] to Interstate 5, and [the Costa Mesa Freeway] to the Cleveland National Forest,” Healy told board members. “There will be many traffic impacts.”

The prospect of fewer new roads is being applauded by preservationists and outdoor enthusiasts, but some local officials are concerned that any new development will funnel traffic onto already crowded roadways.

Some also fear that the financial health of the Eastern toll road, Orange County’s only successful tollway, might be jeopardized.

“I am concerned that the bonding for those roads was based on ambitious plans from the Irvine Co.,” said Joanne Coontz, a member of the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency and Orange City Council. “Their plans included not only residential, but commercial, high-end industrial and schools.”

Healy said that because of the changes, traffic analysis was needed to decide how the county’s Master Plan of Arterial Highways might need to be revised. He said an offer by the Irvine Co. to pay for and conduct such a study for OCTA and other agencies has been accepted.

Irvine Co. spokesman John Christiansen said the company was beginning to discuss the impact of the gift with local governments and agencies.

Healy said in his memo that because the Irvine Co. wants a “quick turnaround,” and because it is “anxious” to move forward with revised developments in Orange and elsewhere, he and a group of affected agencies decided to let the company conduct its own traffic study of the potential impact.

Orange Mayor Pro Tem Mike Alvarez said he was unaware such a study was being launched, and that it should be independently funded and conducted.

Alvarez said he is besieged with complaints from residents about traffic conditions.

By eliminating the extensions of Culver and Jeffrey roads, he said, any new traffic from 4,200 new homes still planned by the Irvine Co. would be shunted onto Chapman Avenue.