MTA fears 405 Freeway bottleneck at O.C. line
Plans to widen the 405 Freeway in northern Orange County are causing concern among Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials who warn that the project will create a massive bottleneck at the Los Angeles County line where the road narrows.
Traffic experts say the rift over the Orange County Transportation Authority’s $500-million project highlights the need for better regional planning among agencies with differing views on how to ease congestion.
“They don’t want us to widen the 405 Freeway,” OCTA Chairwoman Carolyn Cavecche said of the project. But “our responsibility is to Orange County.”
The freeway handles more than 300,000 vehicles a day and is among the nation’s most congested highways. Traffic is expected to surge 25% by 2025.
OCTA plans to add a lane in each direction on the 405 between Costa Mesa and Seal Beach, a project still a decade away.
MTA officials are already bracing for increased bottlenecks at the county line on the 5 Freeway. OCTA is widening the Santa Ana Freeway to 10 lanes, a project expected to be completed in three years.
The MTA has plans to widen its part of I-5 from six to eight lanes. But it won’t be done until 2016, said Carol Inge, MTA’s chief planning officer.
Word of the MTA’s concern over plans for the 405 Freeway circulated early last week among OCTA board members. On Friday, it was reiterated at a meeting with Inge, Caltrans officials and OCTA staff members.
Inge said the MTA would like to work with Orange County and the California Department of Transportation in gathering and sharing information on preconstruction work such as trip patterns and local transit plans in the Seal Beach-Long Beach area.
How the freeway projects will affect traffic at the county line highlights a lack of regional planning, transportation experts say.
While the MTA has sunk millions into subways and light rail, Orange and Riverside counties have focused on adding more freeway lanes.
“We build lanes, not trains,” said Jerry Amante, a Tustin councilman and OCTA director.
Cavecche has pushed for closer working relationships among the region’s transportation agencies. OCTA and Riverside County transportation officials agreed to jointly study the building of a tunnel through the Santa Ana Mountains linking the counties and ways to alleviate congestion on the Riverside Freeway.
Art Leahy, OCTA chief executive, noted that the MTA accelerated its plans for the Santa Ana Freeway only after OCTA began construction to improve the freeway near the county line in Buena Park.
“I think that’s healthy,” Leahy said. “The fact that L.A. improved the I-5 following the lead of Orange County, that’s synergy. The fact that we have difference of opinions, that’s just business.”
The Automobile Club of Southern California supports the “badly needed project” on the 405 “and encourages the MTA to follow suit,” said Hamid Bahadori, public policy and programs director for the auto club.
Orange County voters in November overwhelmingly approved an extension of Measure M, a half-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax that raises money for transportation projects. The 405 Freeway widening was included in the measure, Bahadori said.
“Voters expect to see their money at work relieving traffic congestions on freeways,” he said.
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