Costa Mesa Freeway Speed Rises 7 M.P.H. on Car Pool Pledge Day

For the most part, traffic did its typical commute crawl Tuesday morning--but it crawled a bit faster than usual on at least five stretches of the Southern California freeway system.

Caltrans officials monitoring 10 freeway checkpoints on Tuesday--designated “Keep California Moving Day”--said traffic moved as much as 7 m.p.h. faster in five locations, compared to measurements from a similar survey conducted a month earlier.

The agency checkpoints were set up from 6 to 10 a.m. on the Golden State, San Bernardino, Pomona, San Diego and the Costa Mesa freeways in an effort to gauge the success of efforts to promote car-pooling.

Transportation officials said that nearly 175,000 Southern California commuters pledged not to drive alone Tuesday as part of the observance of Rideshare Week.

While the officials acknowledge that the results were not earth-shattering---considering that about 78% of Southern California drivers continue to drive solo--traffic experts say the increased speeds indicate that car-pooling and other alternatives have an effect on traffic.

The most significant increases were along the Pomona Freeway at Peck Road near El Monte, where the average speed increased from 30 m.p.h. to 37 m.p.h., and on the Costa Mesa Freeway at McFadden Street in Santa Ana, where speeds went from 48 m.p.h. to 55 m.p.h., according to the survey conducted by Caltrans and Commuter Transportation Services Inc.

The bad news is that at half of the checkpoints, traffic was the same or worse.

On the Ventura Freeway at Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Van Nuys, the checkpoint where traffic flow was slowest Tuesday, the survey showed that speeds decreased from 37 m.p.h. to about 30 m.p.h. despite ride-sharing.