Start of Project to Widen I-405 Marks New Era

When a two-year, $34-million widening project on the San Diego Freeway (I-405) begins Monday, it will mark a new era of highway construction for Orange County after a decade of tremendous population growth and only two added miles of freeway.

Caltrans officials say the project, which includes sound walls and car-pool lanes, will be done mostly at night and on weekends to avoid traffic snarls.

The project involves an expansion of the San Diego Freeway from eight lanes to 10 lanes on a 14-mile stretch between the San Gabriel River Freeway (I-605) in Seal Beach and the Corona del Mar Freeway (California 73) in Costa Mesa.

Flexible Schedules

Caltrans is urging major employers to adopt flexible work schedules to limit truck deliveries to off-hours as much as possible and to encourage ride sharing by employees. But no routes around the construction areas are being recommended.

“We’re not looking at alternate routes,” said Jerry Baxter, Caltrans’ director of operations in Los Angeles. . . . Some people may find them on their own, but the problem is that everything else is saturated.”

Stanley T. Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission, added: “Freeway construction is a lot like a trip to the dentist. It hurts. . . . But there are long-term benefits.”

This fall, a 10-year, $1.4-billion reconstruction project is scheduled to begin on the Santa Ana Freeway (I-5). Plans call for widening the freeway from six to 12 lanes, with a bus guideway down the middle. However, the project actually begins with a widening of the Costa Mesa Freeway (California 55) on both sides of the Santa Ana Freeway interchange.

By early next year, the 10-mile, $26-million widening of the San Diego Freeway between the Corona del Mar Freeway in Costa Mesa and the Santa Ana Freeway in Irvine also will be under way.

Grading will continue on segments of the planned foothill and San Joaquin Hills freeways in south Orange County, even though both highways are only partly funded so far and will not be open until the early to mid-1990s. These will be the first new freeways--except for a two-mile stretch of the Corona del Mar Freeway--to be built in Orange County in the last 20 years.

Twenty-four miles of car-pool lanes have been added in that time.

The freeway improvement projects are expected to increase significantly the vehicle-handling capacity of Orange County’s 135-mile freeway system.

But until the work is finished, say state and county transportation officials, Orange County motorists must share rides more and alter work schedules to avoid rush-hour commuting or face additional, frustrating delays.

During the last five years, Oftelie said, about $105 million in state and federal money has been spent on Orange County highway projects. During the next five years, that amount will soar to $452 million.

Some public officials and developers hope that this surge in highway construction will send a political message to Orange County voters.

Feeling threatened by a countywide slow-growth initiative designed to control traffic, the measure’s opponents hope that the upcoming round of freeway improvements will persuade voters that such a measure is unnecessary.

That was part of the reasoning behind the Santa Margarita Co.’s recent ceremonial ground breaking for the foothill freeway in the planned community of Rancho Santa Margarita in south Orange County.

“We think it’s very important that members of the public become aware that their traffic problems are being addressed, not just in the future, but right now, today,” said company spokeswoman Joan Contino.

Fear of Growth

But others, including state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), say freeway construction also may increase voters’ fears that the improvements will bring more growth--and more traffic.

Caltrans’ Baxter says his agency is going to great lengths to prevent what could be an angry backlash from motorists who may be confused and inconvenienced during the construction projects.

For one thing, the agency is contacting major employers in hopes of boosting several traffic management strategies, especially ride sharing, in connection with the San Diego Freeway widening project.

“It’s a sign of things to come,” says Baxter. “When we do the I-5 (widening), we’ll have to do the same thing.”

Although the timing was coincidental, the Orange County Transit District is also launching a renewed effort to promote flexible work hours and ride sharing through its Commuter Network program, reachable by calling 636-RIDE. The district is offering vans to companies that do not already have a van-pool program. Employees using the vans will pay for gasoline and maintenance.

The district does not plan to offer increased bus service along the freeway routes affected, said spokeswoman Joanne Curran, “because it takes more than a year to plan and implement a new bus route.”

Baxter said Caltrans is including tough language in its contracts with highway construction firms to control exactly when and where they can disrupt regular traffic, even to the point of requiring the installation of so-called anti-gawking shields--similar to plywood fencing around a building site--that block motorists’ views of the road work.

“We don’t expect any problem on the I-405 project,” said Baxter. “Most, if not all, of the construction work will take place at night, although that freeway does have extended heavy traffic in the evening hours . . . gawkers are the big problem. People slow down to see what’s going on.”

On the San Diego Freeway project, Baxter said, there will be no lane closures from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday. On weekends lane closures also will be limited to some extent.

The San Diego Freeway is one of the busiest in California, Baxter acknowledged, and temporary ramp closures will be a significant problem to nearby residents.

But Baxter said he did not yet have a specific schedule of ramp closings or locations.

Sound walls will be built along the entire length of the San Diego Freeway project, and almost every bridge will have to be widened, which is why the job is not scheduled to be completed until the spring of 1989.