5-Year SigAlert Ahead for Main Artery : * Widening the Santa Ana Freeway to Require Patience, Sense of Humor for Drivers

The Santa Ana Freeway brought fun-seekers to Disneyland and home buyers to Orange County in search of contentment in the suburbs. It is one of those defining roads in America, like the bustling expressways of Chicago or the Central Artery of Boston. But like stretches of Interstate 95, which connects the mainline cities of the East Coast, the Santa Ana Freeway has become a victim of its own success; it’s hopelessly outdated in stretches and badly in need of overhaul.

The good news for some of these great American roads--specifically the Santa Ana Freeway and the Central Artery--is that they are in line for costly and time-consuming modernization soon. Perhaps they can again be, for at least some moments in the day, a joy to ride. The bad news is that their repair will inevitably put the people who depend on them in for years of traffic tie-ups and frustration--enough certainly to make some wonder along the way whether it is worth the trouble.

One of the first things the newcomer to Southern California freeways learns is that they get their name as a destination from a starting point in Los Angeles. For the freeway widening, the major engineering feats and worst inconveniences lie just ahead in the destination city of Santa Ana. Mayor Daniel H. Young, who is bullish on widening, sounds like a football coach in the painful training-camp period, promising glory down the road for the trouble of today’s agony in the trenches.

His hoped-for economic boons may indeed come, but first there will be five years of freeway rebuilding, the reconstruction of bridges and freeway interchanges, and the adding of six new lanes. This $475-million feat must be accomplished while 180,000 cars a day go about their business, traversing the lifeline that Young calls “Main Street Orange County.”

This will be a difficult time, but pain-for-gain need not be all inconvenience. To its credit, the state Department of Transportation seems to recognize that it can do more than simply prepare people for the worst. It is planning an ambitious effort to alert motorists to coming ramp closures and other events. There are also laudable plans to provide free tow trucks to keep traffic moving along the construction zone. Construction activity will be shielded from passing motorists to keep traffic moving.

Those and other efforts to lessen the disruption can help a great deal. And Orange County residents can help their own cause during a trying period by retaining patience and a sense of humor.