Tran hopes flexibility helps

If driving to Costa Mesa on the 55 Freeway seems a little less congested next week, maybe with fewer cars darting across four lanes to reach an exit in the nick of time, you’re not crazy. It’s probably thanks to another freeway face-lift by the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Caltrans workers will begin converting the closed carpool lanes in a five-mile stretch from East 17th Street in Santa Ana to the 91 Freeway to “continuous access” for carpool drivers next week, state and OCTA officials announced Wednesday.

Carpool lanes are freeway lanes designed for vehicles carrying two or more people. In 1985, the 55 Freeway became the first in the county to feature a carpool lane. Come Tuesday, it will be the second to convert part of it to continuous access, meaning there will be no double-yellow lines forbidding carpooling drivers from crossing in and out of it. The carpool lane stretches to Costa Mesa, but that half will have to wait for a later project, OCTA officials said.

The idea to convert the lanes to continuous access came on the heels of a 2007 UC Berkeley study weighing the pros and cons of open and closed carpool lanes. Assemblyman Van Tran introduced the necessary legislation in April repealing state vehicle code that called for a 4-foot “buffer” between carpoolers and regular drivers on the 55 Freeway. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill into law in June.

With carpool lanes, “you kind of create these artificial bottlenecks. It bunches up to get in, it bunches up to get out,” said Joel Zlotnik, OCTA spokesman.

“If there’s greater flexibility, if you as a carpooler don’t have to wait two or three miles to get into the carpool lane and the traffic is congested in the single occupant lanes, your ability to get over sooner is going to reduce traffic,” said Marie Montgomery, spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Tran said he’s looking forward to the completion of an OCTA study looking into adding an extra lane to the 55 Freeway leading into Costa Mesa.

Without the 4-foot buffer, about half a car width, the freeway may have some wiggle room to redraw the lanes and add one, Tran said.

“It’s nice because it doesn’t cost that much and secondly, it doesn’t require any eminent domain,” Tran said.

Costa Mesa Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor also welcomes the possible changes.

“There are no simple solutions. But adding capacity can be one of many solutions,” he said. “You also have to look at encouraging mass transit and carpooling, and all alternatives.”

The 55 Freeway started out as a four-lane (two in each direction) highway.

It now has five lanes in either direction and serves more than 200,000 cars daily — a number expected to grow in the coming decades.

A recent study of drivers on the 22 Freeway, the only county freeway with continuous access carpool lanes, showed 70% preferred it over closed access and most wanted it expanded, Zlotnik said.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.