alleymon Five options emerge for Highway 91 fix
Those options include improving two existing routes —- the 91 itself through Corona and Anaheim Hills, and Highway 74, known as the Ortega Highway, through the Cleveland National Forest.Solutions also include three potential new corridors: Lake Street or Nichols Road at Interstate 15 in Lake Elsinore to Highways 133 and 241 in Orange County; Cajalco Road and I-15 in Corona to Highways 133 and 241; and a route along railroad tracks that parallel Highway 91 to the north, through Yorba Linda.
Within each corridor, there are multiple options. Freeways, railroad tracks and special bus lanes all are on the table, officials said. And the new corridors through the forest are so broad —- about three miles wide —- there are many potential routes.
Jeff Miller, a Riverside County transportation commissioner from Corona, said the menu of strategies was narrowed on Friday by a committee of officials from Riverside and Orange counties that has been steering a $3.3 million study of travel between the counties. Miller, who sits on the committee, reported the panel’s progress at a transportation commission meeting Wednesday.
John Standiford, spokesman for the Riverside County Transportation Commission, said the two-county panel will finalize the range of potential solutions March 4. Then, the agencies sponsoring the study are slated to roll out those solutions in a series of public meetings in the two counties.
On this side of the county line, meetings are planned for March 31 in Corona and April 14 in Lake Elsinore.
The study is a joint undertaking of the Riverside County Transportation Commission, Orange County Transportation Authority and Transportation Corridor Agencies, which is building toll roads in Orange County.
After getting public input in the spring, the agencies plan to further refine options over the summer and deliver a preferred strategy upon completing the study in December
“We’re not at a point where we are advocating for a particular alignment,” Miller said.
Yet, Miller said a lot of progress has been made. He said some trends are emerging, namely that the railroad corridor is unpopular to many, that south Orange County opposes upgrading Ortega and that support is building in Orange County for tying a new road into the interchange of Highways 133 and 241.
Perhaps most important, Miller said, the two counties are working cooperatively to address the troubling 91 congestion after a long history of locking horns.
Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell, who represents Anaheim Hills, Yorba Linda and Irvine, and is the authority’s chairman, said, “There is a tremendous sense of cooperation going on between the two counties. And that is quite a change from a few years ago.”
There also seems to be growing support for a second corridor to take pressure off Highway 91, which carries more than 260,000 cars a day and by 2030 will be loaded with 450,000 vehicles, transportation commission projections show.
A second corridor is needed even if agencies manage to squeeze more lanes out of the Highway 91’s limited space, officials say.
“Either way, we have to do something to the 91 as well,” said Carolyn Cavecche, Orange city councilwoman and board member for the Orange County Transportation Authority. “It’s horrendous. I feel horrible for the people coming in and going out.”
Campbell agreed.
“We need more capacity,” Campbell said. “And I think that we need to have a second alternative to the 91 corridor.”
The traffic bottleneck aside, he said, the need for another route was underscored last month when storm runoff in the Santa Ana River triggered a small leak at Corona’s Prado Dam, which is located along Highway 91. If the dam were to one day collapse, it would almost certainly take out the highway, officials say.
Cavecche said a backup for that thoroughfare is needed to provide millions of residents a way to evacuate in a natural disaster or terrorist attack.
“There is really no other good way to get people out of the county to Riverside if something happens,” she said.
Miller also said the panel seems to be moving away from recommending a long tunnel beneath the Cleveland National Forest, like the one an Orange County engineer proposed a few years ago. That’s primarily because of cost, which some say could reach $6 billion.
“I’m still wide open,” Campbell said. “But I’m nervous about the cost of a tunnel.”
Cavecche said cost will be a critical factor in any decision she makes.
“We can plan anything we want, but if we can’t pay for it, it’s not going to get built,” Cavecche said.
A forest corridor likely would feature an overland route punctuated by short tunnels, officials said.