Freeway Projects

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Early Action Freeway Timeline

Every day, traffic backs up somewhere on the Orange County freeway system. And, every day, freeway traffic seems to get a little worse.

In the past decade, Orange County has made major strides in re-building our aging freeway system. But there is still an enormous amount of work that needs to be done to make the freeway system work well. You see the need for improvement every time you drive on an Orange County freeway.

Forty-three percent of net revenues from the Renewed Measure M Transportation Investment Plan is dedicated to improving Orange County freeways, the largest portion of the 30-year transportation plan.

SR-91 is the Centerpiece 

Making the troubled Riverside/Artesia Freeway (SR-91) work again is the centerpiece of the Renewed Measure M Freeway program. The fix on the SR-91 will require new lanes, new bridges, new overpasses, and, in the Santa Ana Canyon portion of the freeway, a diversion of drivers to the Foothill Corridor (SR-241) so the rest of the Orange County freeway system can work more effectively.

And there’s more to the freeway program than the fix of SR-91 — much more. More than $1 billion is earmarked for Interstate 5 in South County. More than $800 million is slated to upgrade the San Diego Freeway (I-405) between Irvine and the Los Angeles County line. Another significant investment is planned on the congested Costa Mesa Freeway (SR-55). And needed projects designed to relieve traffic chokepoints are planned for almost every Orange County freeway.

To make any freeway system work, bottlenecks at interchanges also have to be fixed. The notorious Orange Crush Interchange — where the Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) meets the Orange Freeway (SR-57) and the Garden Grove Freeway (SR-22) in a traffic tangle near Angel Stadium — is in need of a major face lift. And the intersection of Interstate 5 and the Costa Mesa Freeway (SR-55) is also slated for major repair.

Pays Big Dividends 

Local investment in freeways also pays big dividends in the search for other needed freeway dollars. Because of state and federal matching rules, Orange County’s local investment in freeway projects acts as a magnet for state and federal transportation dollars — pulling more freeway construction dollars into the county and allowing more trafficreducing freeway projects to be built sooner.

Innovative Environmental Mitigation 

A minimum of $243.5 million will be available, subject to a Master Agreement, to provide for comprehensive, rather than piecemeal, mitigation of the environmental impacts of freeway improvements. Using a proactive, innovative approach, the Master Agreement negotiated between the Orange County Local Transportation Authority and state and federal resource agencies will provide higher-value environmental benefits such as habitat protection, wildlife corridors and resource preservation in exchange for streamlined project approvals for the freeway program as a whole.

Freeway projects will also be planned, designed and constructed with consideration for their aesthetic, historic and environmental impacts on nearby properties and communities using such elements as parkway style designs, locally native landscaping, sound reduction and aesthetic treatments that complement the surroundings.