405’s New Car-Pool Lanes Get Fast Start

In their first day of operation Thursday, new car-pool lanes on the San Diego Freeway had an impact, helping to double peak traffic speeds in the morning while increasing the number of cars on the highway’s unrestricted lanes, Caltrans officials said Thursday.

Although monitoring pads embedded in the pavement on the new southbound car-pool lanes failed to report data Thursday, sensors in the northbound lanes displayed remarkably improved performance over the previous day, according to Joe El-Harake, Orange County commuter lanes coordinator for the state Department of Transportation.

“It’s very difficult to generalize from one day of operation,” El-Harake said, noting that a variety of factors can affect freeway speeds. “Still, it looks promising. I’m personally very excited to see it.”

The car-pool lanes are reserved for cars or trucks carrying two or more occupants.

California Highway Patrol officials said there appeared to be no unusual problems after the lanes opened Thursday. Although some morning commuters reported heavy traffic on the southbound lanes, the freeway flowed fairly well in both directions throughout the day.

‘No Problems’

“We had no problems whatsoever,” CHP spokeswoman Angel Johnson said. “Traffic seemed to be a little lighter with people getting into the car-pool lane.”

The biggest change came on the southbound side of the freeway, where a 14-mile car-pool lane between the interchange of the Corona del Mar Freeway in Costa Mesa and the San Gabriel River Freeway in Seal Beach was opened for the first time early Thursday.

Also, four new miles were added to an existing 10-mile commuter lane on the northbound San Diego Freeway that has been opened in stages since last December. On the northbound side, the new addition stretches from the Corona del Mar Freeway interchange to the Brookhurst Street exit.

Congestion-stressed commuters welcomed the long-awaited grand opening of the lanes.

Built over the past two years at a cost of $34 million, the new stretches were shut off for miles in recent weeks only by bright-orange rubber traffic cones, prompting numerous queries from motorists eager to dive in.

Based on figures from a monitoring station at Seal Beach Boulevard, traffic on the freeway’s unrestricted lanes averaged 15 miles an hour or less on Wednesday during the peak commuter hour between 7 and 8 a.m. Things speeded up considerably on Thursday, with average speeds ranging from 35 to 51 m.p.h. during the hour, El-Harake said.

At the same time, the unrestricted northbound lanes of the freeway handled nearly 2,000 more cars Thursday. On Wednesday, 8,537 cars traveled on the freeway between 7 and 8 a.m., compared to 10,478 using it Thursday, said El-Harake, who reported his findings during a meeting with aides to state legislators from Orange County.

El-Harake, who could not supply speed or traffic statistics for the car-pool lanes, said no firm conclusions should be drawn from the numbers for at least another three to six months.

He also cautioned that traffic is traditionally lighter during the month of August, and returns to normal after Labor Day. Only then would reliable figures for the impact of the commuter lanes be produced.

Although a new car-pool lane traditionally takes about five years to reach its full potential, Caltrans officials anticipate that the San Diego Freeway lanes could soon surpass those on the Costa Mesa Freeway as the most heavily used in California.

Such predictions are based in part on the freeway’s heavy volume. With about 300,000 motorists using the San Diego Freeway in Orange County each day, it is the second busiest in the world, just behind the bustling Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles.

In addition, regularly scheduled bus service is planned along the San Diego Freeway’s car-pool lanes, which will dramatically boost the number of people using it each day. Construction work is continuing to extend the commuter lanes from the interchange of the Corona del Mar Freeway to the junction of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways south of Irvine.

County transportation officials eventually hope to link existing car-pool lanes and special busways into a 250-mile, countywide network encompassing nearly every Orange County freeway, as well as three planned tollways.

Fines for driving in the lanes with only one person in a car range from $246 for the first offense up to $613.50.

CAR-POOL LANE IMPACT

Speeds and traffic volumes for existing unrestricted lanes on the San Diego Freeway northbound showed an increase both in speeds and the number of cars during the morning rush hour after the car-pool lane opened early Thursday morning.

All measurements taken at Seal Beach Boulevard.

Aug. 30 Aug. 31 (Without (With Time Car-Pool) Car-Pool) 6 to 7 a.m. 9,893 9,882 7 to 8 a.m. 8,537 10,478 8 to 9 a.m. 9,484 9,658 Total 27,914 30,018 SPEEDS 6 a.m. 53 m.p.h. 54 m.p.h. 6:15 a.m. 52 m.p.h. 54 m.p.h. 6:30 a.m. 40 m.p.h. 23 m.p.h. 6:45 a.m. 18 m.p.h. 25 m.p.h. 7 a.m. 14 m.p.h. 35 m.p.h. 7:15 a.m. 14 m.p.h. 46 m.p.h. 7:30 a.m. 14 m.p.h. 36 m.p.h. 7:45 a.m. 15 m.p.h. 51 m.p.h. 8 a.m. 11 m.p.h. 54 m.p.h. 8:15 a.m. 19 m.p.h. 52 m.p.h. 8:30 a.m. 24 m.p.h. 49 m.p.h. 8:45 a.m. 41 m.p.h. 51 m.p.h.

Source: Caltrans