Fixes for 55 congestion crawl to a start with study

Costa Mesa officials saw their lobbying efforts pay off Monday, when the Orange County Transportation Authority agreed to fund a study of possible fixes for congestion at the end of the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway.

City leaders say the freeway’s southern end on Newport Boulevard at 19th Street is one of the county’s most congested intersections. The $275,000 study will explore solutions such as putting part of the freeway underground, using flyover lanes to separate local traffic and through traffic, or adding another southbound lane.

“This location is really the only freeway in Orange County that ends at a city street,” Costa Mesa transportation manager Peter Naghavi said. “It creates a bottleneck. Right now we carry a lot of traffic and in the future it’s only going to get worse.”

Construction on another northbound lane, which would bring total lanes to seven, is already slated to begin in 2008. That should ease the traffic backups for up to 10 years, but planners are trying to look 20 to 30 years down the road with the study, Naghavi said.

But any fixes are a long way off. The study will take 14 months, and whatever proposals it yields will need environmental analysis, Naghavi said. It could be 2012 before there is a complete environmental study showing the best alternatives, and any project then would need funding.

“I’m glad that the first step is being taken, and that’s exactly what this is,” Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor said. “It’s gridlock, and I believe we have an obligation to keep traffic moving.”

If a tunnel or flyovers are proposed, the city may face opposition from Newport Boulevard business owners who see the thousands of cars that pass daily as potential customers. Newport Beach also may be suspicious of plans that would move the freeway’s end closer to its borders.

“We would certainly fight anything that would create more traffic or more congestion on our streets,” Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said, but added, “I think we would have to see it before we would decide what our reaction would be.”