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Ortega Highway gets a facelift
Next week Caltrans launches improvement project on 74; delays expected.
The Orange County RegisterConstruction on a dangerous 3-mile stretch of Ortega (74) Highway begins next Tuesday – with traffic delays expected for three years.
The $40 million project, from San Juan Creek Bridge to the Riverside County line, includes widening the existing lanes, improving drainage and adding 4-foot-wide shoulders.
"We are urging them to use alternative routes," said Pam Gorniak, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation in Orange County. "They need to understand what time constraints they have and make any adjustments to their travel."
Caltrans officials said the bulk of the roadwork will take place during nighttime hours, with the highway completely shut down from 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., Monday through Saturday, until 2010. During the rest of the day traffic will share one lane – with priority given to westbound traffic in the morning and eastbound traffic in the evening.
Source: http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1578395.php
Construction closes Highway 74 at night
Road will close at night for construction
For the next three years, starting Tuesday, Highway 74, the major link between Lake Elsinore and Orange County will be reduced to one lane in the daytime and shut down entirely at night.
The closure is for a $40 million safety-improvement project for a three-mile stretch of road that will add turnout lanes, widen shoulders, place rumble strips on the median and add drainage to the road.
Also known as Ortega Highway, Highway 74 was built in the 1930s as a route for those in Los Angeles and Orange counties to visit Lake Elsinore.
The rural highway rises from Lake Elsinore, taking motorists around sheer cliffs, near waterfalls and trickling streams, and finally down into San Juan Capistrano, where it connects with Interstate 5.
On weekday mornings and evenings, cars and even tractor-trailers line up on the two-lane road. Accidents often happen when vehicles try to pass slower-moving vehicles or motorcycle riders take turns too quickly.
From 2001 to 2004, there were 114 accidents and five fatalities on the three-mile stretch to be improved, California Highway Patrol numbers show. In that same time, the 20-mile stretch of highway had 569 accidents and 23 deaths.
In 2005, nearly 11,000 vehicles a day used the highway. That is expected to quadruple in the next 25 years as people who work in Orange County continue to move to southwestern Riverside County.
Caltrans officials said the safety improvements will cut down accidents and provide for smoother travel. Work includes adding safety enhancements to prevent rockslides, widening the roads to 12 feet, adding two new turnouts and adding 4-foot shoulders to the road.
Officials said they took community comments into consideration when creating their work plans.
Between 8:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. westbound and eastbound lanes will share a lane with flagging operators. Officials said they would try to let traffic flow in the direction of heaviest congestion.
The road will be shut down from about 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. during the nights until 2010.
Jesse Alvarado said the improvement would change his life.
The 28-year-old bought a "fixer-upper" home in Lake Elsinore with his close friends, who all work in construction and have jobs in Riverside County. Alvarado kept his job as an assistant manager at a grocery store in Laguna Niguel and now is sweating that decision.
He often works past 8 p.m. and is finding friends and family he can stay with on the nights when he works late.
"I’m not going to drive an hour out of my way in each direction just so I can sleep in my bed," he said as he stopped for gas in Lake Elsinore. "You have to learn to roll with the punches. That doesn’t mean I like it."
When the improvements were brought up in 2005, residents and business owners flooded meetings for answers. Many were critical of the cost and of shutting down the road at night. Some suggested that the improvements should be shelved until a decision is made to tunnel a road through the mountains to the north.
Moon and his wife have spent the past 10 years working to build up their business in Orange County. Each morning, they drop off their daughter at school and head to work. In the afternoon, Daniel Moon takes Highway 74 back to Lake Elsinore to pick up his daughter.
"We had a decision to make when we learned about the work: Sell the business and stay in Elsinore, or sell the home and move to Orange County," he said. "This basically puts me out of a job."
Source: http://www.pe.com/localnews/transportation/stories/PE_News_Local_D_ortega14.23a18a1.html