O.C. seeking solutions to 55 Freeway gridlock

Costa Mesa officials are beginning a project study aimed at relieving gridlock where the 55 Freeway ends on Newport Boulevard.

The report will examine various proposed solutions and look at the project’s effect on local businesses and residents, according to the Daily Pilot. Costa Mesa took on the expansion project more than a year ago.

“A lot of people think traffic is good for business, but too much traffic and congested traffic is not good for business,” Peter Naghavi, Costa Mesa’s director of public services, said. “If I’m a loyal customer near there and it takes me half an hour to get there every time, I’m going to find another place where there isn’t too much traffic.”

About 100,000 cars unload from the southbound 55 Freeway onto Newport Boulevard daily, with about half going to local destinations and the other half traveling to Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and other cities, Naghavi said.

Although there are seven lanes, they are not enough to prevent jams because the street eventually narrows. The city attempted to help the situation by adding more lanes, but that relieved traffic by about 33%, Naghavi said.

Read the full story here.

-- Mona Shadia

Photo credit: Daily Pilot

Comments

[Stephen]

Surprise surprise. "The city attempted to help the situation by adding more lanes, but that relieved traffic by about 33%, Naghavi said."

Orange County remains one of the few parts of the country continuing to believe they can build their way out of congestion. With no coordination between land use and transportation, lack of mixed use development, lack of viable transit alternatives, and an abundance of sprawling cul de sacs, they have a long way to go in creating a more sustainable, livable, and efficient region.

[DanaPointer]

Surprise surprise, somebody from LA comments how things are somehow different in Orange than LA county. OCTA is cleaner and than MTA, also entire soCal lacks any regional transit/urban plannning, its just over 100 cities pretending to exist in a vacuum.

Anyways, I am just glad this jam is couple miles from the beach and luckily 55 doesn't extend all the way down to PCH. Quick solution is a couple parking garages at end of 55 in Costa Mesa and very frequent, every 10min or so shuttle down to PCH and up and down PCH that run until bars close. Shuttle can then be converted to rail once ridership on busses is established. Problem solved.

[Debbie]

Here's the scarey part...the officials just figured out there was a problem. This problem has been here for over 20 years!