Transitway a $400-Million Waste, Group Tells Officials

SANTA ANA — Drivers for Highway Safety, a small, grass-roots group opposed to car-pool lanes, accused transportation officials on Monday of wasting more than $400 million on a so-called transitway planned as part of the Santa Ana Freeway widening.

A transitway is a system of special ramps and lanes reserved for buses and car pools, and separated by concrete barriers from regular freeway traffic. In the case of the Santa Ana Freeway, the transitway will occupy the freeway median and will have special, elevated ramps that will soar above the Santa Ana-Costa Mesa freeway interchange and drop buses and car-poolers into the car-pool lanes on the Costa Mesa Freeway--bypassing the existing, severely congested cloverleaf system of interchange ramps.

Using charts and an overhead projector, group members Wayne King and Bill Ward argued that about 22 feet of freeway right of way in each direction of the Santa Ana Freeway will be unusable for traffic as part of the transitway’s design.

The unused space, which cost Caltrans millions of dollars to acquire, will serve as a buffer zone between the transitway’s outer barrier and regular freeway lanes.

More than $400 million could be saved, King and Ward argued, if regular traffic lanes were installed in place of the transitway.

The freeway is being widened from six to 12 lanes at the transitway’s location in central Orange County, but one lane in each direction will form the transitway.

The group’s presentation drew silence at Monday’s joint meeting of the Orange County Transportation Commission and the Orange County Transit District, which is helping to pay for the transitway.

But in a spirited exchange in a hallway after the meeting, Ward challenged OCTC Chairman Dana W. Reed to defend the transitway project and name any group of residents that has ever favored it.

“Where’s the constituency for this?” Ward shouted. “We’re talking about $400 million of taxpayers’ money for this, and (OCTC) is the only one who wants it.”

Reed described the design as an “engineering decision” and said OCTC members believe the transitway will enhance traffic flow.

Caltrans and OCTC officials said state and federal agencies have adopted policies that make it difficult to obtain funds for new freeway lanes unless they are part of a project that includes car-pool lanes or transitways.