alleymon 11:27 PM PST on Thursday, January 20, 2005
By BRADLEY WEAVER / The Press-Enterprise
Thousands of Inland commuters who use the Ortega Highway will be blocked from their preferred travel route to Orange County even longer than expected.
California Department of Transportation officials said Thursday that an unexpected shortage of road-building material and the presence of a high-pressure gas line has extended repair work on the winding, two-lane mountain road connecting Riverside and Orange counties. “Our crews are working around the clock to repair the damage,” said spokeswoman Yvonne Washington. “We know it’s an inconvenience, but safety is our first priority and we hope to open the road late next week.”
Construction crews continued work Thursday to rebuild a portion of the roadway, also known as Highway 74, west of Lake Elsinore that’s used by as many as 15,000 vehicles a day.
The road is closed three miles east of Interstate 5 in Orange County where crews are excavating a 50-foot-deep trench to replace the pipes that funnel San Lucas Creek underneath the highway.
Those pipes, as well as the slopes and road itself, were severely damaged by the storms earlier this month. About $1.5 million has been spent to fix the damage.
The repairs can’t come soon enough for drivers such as Murrieta’s Linda Tomas, who said the closure has added an extra 50 minutes to her morning commute to Irvine.
“It’s been painful,” said Tomas, who now travels north along the already crowded Interstate 15 and connects to the clogged Highway 91 in Corona. “I’m sure that I’m not the only person being rerouted. It’s got to be adding to traffic everywhere else.”
Some drivers are opting for the southern route, taking I-15 to Highway 76, then connecting to Interstate 5.
Commuters aren’t the only ones affected. The Lookout Roadhouse restaurant -with its panoramic views of Lake Elsinore – has been strangely quiet for owner Tim DeNardo, who estimates 75 percent of his daily customers have vanished.
“We’re anxious to get back to normal,” DeNardo said. “If people can’t get to Orange County, then they’re not stopping here.”
On Wednesday, the road opened to some residents and businesses but police are halting all travel beyond El Carizo Village in the Cleveland National Forest.
Transportation officials say the closure of Ortega Highway underscores the need for another highway linking Orange and Riverside counties. Last spring, dozens of officials from the Riverside County Transportation Commission, the Orange County Transportation Authority and an agency that controls the Highway 241 toll road began a $3.3 million, 18-month study to examine ways to improve travel between the two counties.
The proposals include digging a tunnel underneath the Cleveland National Forest and adding a second deck to Highway 91. One possibility is to expand the Ortega Highway.
“This is a good example of why that study is so important,” said Riverside County Transportation Commission spokesman John Standiford. “We really have only two viable ways to get between counties, the smallest of the two (the Ortega Highway) is temporarily out of order and we’ve seen what impact it has had on the entire system.”
Reach Bradley Weaver at (951) 368-9519 or bweaver@pe.com