Caltrans Can’t Just Mop Up Steady Drip Onto Freeway

Jim O’Sullivan is tired of the unscheduled carwashes he keeps getting on the Santa Ana Freeway.

They began nine months ago as he was driving home to Rancho Santa Margarita from San Diego, where he works for a construction company. On the northbound Santa Ana Freeway, just past Avenida Pico in San Clemente, a stream of water flowed steadily off a pedestrian overpass, raining on the far right lane.

“It looked like large drops of reclaimed water,” O’Sullivan recalled. “When it hit my windshield, it splattered pretty good,” obstructing his view. “When I turned on the wipers, it just smeared it around.”

O’Sullivan said the situation was dangerous because his visibility was reduced to near zero for five to 10 seconds and because the pavement was slick. But he figured it was an anomaly.

Weeks went by, and the waterfall continued. O’Sullivan made a point of avoiding the lane but sometimes forgot and got doused.

Finally, two months ago, O’Sullivan called Caltrans to complain. A polite dispatcher, he said, took down the information, expressed surprise that the agency hadn’t been notified before and promised to pass it along.

More than a month passed, and the water persisted. Three weeks ago, O’Sullivan called Caltrans again. This time, he said, he was passed along to several supervisors, one of whom finally gave him this explanation: Caltrans workers had inspected the site and verified the problem. But they couldn’t figure out who was responsible for it.

The water, O’Sullivan said, is “still running. I hit it one last time the other day, and that’s when I said, OK, that’s it!”

Contacted by Street Smart last week, Caltrans spokeswoman Maureena Duran-Rojas confirmed O’Sullivan’s account. Caltrans maintenance crews, she said, have determined that the water is coming from one of two sources, neither of which is under Caltrans control. Either it’s a result of the area’s naturally high water level, she said, or it’s seeping onto the bridge through various utility lines from a nearby housing tract.

Once the water is on the overpass, she said, it falls onto the freeway through “weep holes” drilled in the concrete for drainage. Because the water is intermittent, she said, it is not considered an emergency.

“They haven’t gone out and torn the bridge down,” Duran-Rojas said of Caltrans investigators. “But his complaint hasn’t reached deaf ears. We are taking it seriously, and it is something we are looking at.” Caltrans is checking permits to find out who owns the utilities involved, she said.

“Once that is determined,” she said, “we will set up a field meeting to go out and look at the site to determine if a utility is responsible, which one and what the next step is in resolving the problem.” The meeting will be within two weeks, she said.

O’Sullivan said he thinks that’s a pretty slow response to a condition that has existed for nine months.

“I just can’t believe that they’re allowing a safety issue like this to continue,” he said. “It’s very frustrating.”

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A recent column about a letter demanding 25 cents additional fare from a person who had used the Foothill Tollway elicited some heated response.

The letter from the Transportation Corridor Agencies indicated the driver had not paid the full $1 fare. She claimed she had.

Agency spokesman Paul Glaab had been quoted as saying that if she would send him a letter with the specifics, he would refund the quarter.

“If the lady already mailed the 25 cents, she should be reimbursed $5.24,” wrote Juan L. Rayces, of Laguna Niguel. “That is: 25 cents wrongly charged to her, 32 cents for the stamp she used to mail the quarter, 32 cents postage for the letter explaining the whole thing to Mr. Glaab and finally $4.35 (minimum wage) for one hour spent writing the letter plus two trips to the post office.

“If she goes to court,” Rayces concluded, “she can probably make more money for the anguish of receiving a ‘less than conciliatory letter’ through no fault of her own.”

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.