4 Car-Pool Lanes on Riverside Freeway?

Hang onto that steering wheel. Transportation officials in Orange and Riverside counties have unveiled plans to add not one, but two car-pool lanes in each direction along a 12-mile stretch of the infamous Riverside Freeway.

Authorities hope the new lanes, which would be the first double commuter lanes in the state, will ease the crippling congestion on the freeway, the prime link for hordes of commuters traveling between homes in Riverside County and jobs in Orange County.

Officials expect construction on the initial phases of the $90-million project could begin by early next year. There is a catch, however, and as usual it involves money.

Riverside County has funds to build the lanes in its territory, but Orange County simply lacks any cash for the project. The transportation agencies for the two counties have discussed a loan, but the prospects remain murky and Riverside County officials say they will press ahead with their end of the project.

That has prompted concern on the Orange County side that the monumental morning and evening traffic jams on the freeway will merely be shifted west, producing even greater congestion in the county than now exists.

Meanwhile, an Orange County-based anti-commuter lanes organization promises to battle the Riverside Freeway proposal to the end. Members of Drivers for Highway Safety say the double car-pool lanes will only mean many more problems with accidents, while valuable real estate that could be used for general-use lanes will be wasted.

“I think it’s double bad,” said Wayne King, a member of the group. “It just absolutely doesn’t solve the problem. . . . If you add two, you just waste double the money.”

No one, however, questions that something needs to be done about the traffic mess on the troubled strip of asphalt linking the two counties. In the past decade, traffic volume on the freeway has doubled, with upward of 200,000 cars now using it each day.

With the explosion of housing construction in the Riverside area and the continued growth of job-producing industries in Orange County, authorities are predicting that traffic could swell to about 400,000 by the end of the decade.

“The enormity of the problem is that we could almost widen it forever,” said Stanley T. Oftelie, the executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission. “We could widen it to 25 lanes.”

Transportation experts say one car-pool lane wouldn’t be enough to handle all the traffic. They also are reluctant to add mixed-use lanes, fearing the unrestricted strips will simply serve as an incentive for more motorists to use the freeway.

As the project is now envisioned, a single commuter lane in each direction would stretch between Magnolia Avenue in Corona west to the Corona Expressway in Riverside County. From there, double car-pool lanes would be added to each side of the freeway as far west as the Costa Mesa Freeway in Orange County. Between the Costa Mesa and Orange freeways, one car-pool lane would be built in each direction.

Construction on the project is expected to begin early next year, but the starting date could be delayed because Orange County so far has no money for its portion of the project, even for the installation of a single car-pool lane in each direction.

“We just don’t have the money,” Oftelie said. “It’s still pretty unbearable. . . . We have about enough money to have a bake sale.”

Meanwhile, Riverside County will fund its portion with a half-cent sales tax passed last year for transportation improvements. Similar measures have failed in Orange County twice since 1984.

Orange County is pinning its hopes for funding its $60-million leg of the project on the passage of Proposition 111 on June 5. The initiative calls for an increase in the gas tax to finance traffic improvements throughout California.

But even if the initiative passes, the money won’t be available for five to seven years, Oftelie said. So officials in Orange County have suggested that Riverside County loan the money so the project can go forward in both counties at the same time. The loan would be paid back when Proposition 111 funds become available.

“If Prop. 111 fails, all bets are off,” Oftelie said.

Jack Reagan, the executive director of the Riverside County Transportation Commission, said such a loan would probably require the approval of his county’s residents.

Even if Orange County doesn’t have the money, Riverside County would likely go ahead with the commuter lanes on its side of the county line, he said. The work would focus on a section between Magnolia Avenue to Main Street in Corona and would take about 15 months to complete, Reagan said.

“We’re going to build what we can, when we can, because we have the money and the opportunity,” he said. “Yes, there may be bottlenecks, but our obligation is to help the residents of Riverside County.”

Mark Massman, a transportation consultant with the inland county, rejected suggestions that the traffic will simply worsen at the county line if Orange County’s car-pool lanes aren’t built at the same time.

Right now, the worst congestion occurs during the morning rush hour, where the Corona Expressway (California 71) empties into the Riverside Freeway about three miles east of the county line, Massman said. By the time commuters get to the county line, traffic has been diffused and gets moving again, he said.

“This (car-pool) lane will get past the 71 bottleneck zone,” he said.

Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Perlman contributed to this story.