If ever there was an example of growth turning a local problem into a regional one it's the Riverside Freeway, especially the stretch running from Orange County through the Santa Ana Canyon into Riverside County.
What complicates the search for solutions, aside from the complexity of the problem that goes deeper than just traffic congestion, is the number of government entities that must in some way be involved in the decision.
The bureaucratic traffic jam includes the Orange County Transportation Authority, the Orange County Board of Supervisors, the Riverside County Transportation Commission, the Riverside Board of Supervisors, the Legislature, federal and state transportation officials and agencies, particularly the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the Cleveland National Forest, as well as possible city, special district, private and community environmental watchdog groups.
Riverside County transportation officials, to their credit, have taken the initiative thus far in pushing for action that could not only improve the Riverside Freeway link between the counties but study other possible new corridors to move traffic and ease the Riverside Freeway bottleneck.
Possible new routes identified by Riverside include a connection from Cajalco Road in Corona to the Foothill Tollway; a road in the area of Ortega Highway between Lake Elsinore and San Juan Capistrano; and a new route between Temecula and San Clemente.
The Riverside Freeway canyon corridor carries nearly a quarter of a million motorists each day commuting between their jobs in Orange County and its high-cost housing and their more affordable homes in Riverside communities.
It is believed that the rush hour on the Riverside Freeway through Santa Ana Canyon starts earlier than most anywhere in the state, around 5 a.m. But "rush" hardly describes the traffic flow. Speeds on the westbound morning commute are about 25 mph. That, however, is not as bad as it promises to get.
Projections from a recent regional transportation study see Orange County's job growth as being nearly triple that of its population growth by 2020--a condition that will nearly double the canyon traffic. That will slow the commute speed to about 10 mph and add hours to time already being spent on the road between Orange County's jobs and its bedroom communities in Riverside.
