Diamond Lanes

Orange County voters are almost evenly split over the half-cent sales tax increase now proposed for the November ballot. This, according to The Times Orange County Poll conducted by Irvine-based Mark Baldassare & Associates, is because "a stunning 66% (of the voters) are highly unsatisfied with local traffic and transportation conditions, and only 8% are satisfied." It may be stunning to the pollsters, but it isn't stunning to Orange County commuters. The Times "O.C. Transportation Tax Increase a Tossup" article (July 9)

Although neither group wants to believe it, California's elected officials and its journalists are very much alike in one respect: Both consistently underestimate and misread California's voters. The best example ever was in how both politicians and press misread the voters' intents in passing Proposition 13, which led to a major reduction in property taxes as well as to stringent new requirements for levying new taxes. That movement was characterized as a simple-minded, gut-level reaction against taxes, even taxes for our children's education.

I must disagree with your opinion as to the best use of the soon-to-be-added fourth lane on the Costa Mesa Freeway. The roads and highways of this state are the property of the people. Construction and maintenance of the roads are financed by fuel taxes levied at both the state and federal levels. Each and every driver, regardless of the number of passengers carried, has contributed to the highway trust fund. To restrict free access to any portion of the roads built therefrom is a severe breach of that trust.

Caltrans has begun work on adding a car-pool lane to a 10-mile stretch of the San Diego Freeway through the San Fernando Valley. The $12-million project will add diamond lanes in both directions on the San Diego Freeway between the Ventura and Golden State freeways. Workers have started restriping the freeway, said California Department of Transportation spokesman Russell Snyder.

A recent comment by California Department of Transportation official Joe El-Harake has me fuming. He compared commuters to the Three Stooges all trying to get through the same door. Very funny, considering it is those very commuters he is making fun of who pay his salary. If any group could be referred to as the Three Stooges it is Caltrans, the Orange County Transportation Commission and the Orange County Transit District. Caltrans failed to purchase property needed for the Interstate 5 widening when it became available.

Re "Foes of Carpool Lanes Get New Ammunition," Nov. 29: Over the past 15 years I have logged about half a million miles on L.A. and Orange County freeways. One doesn't need a degree or to have state-of-the-art computer models to see that carpool lanes are another miserable failure in social engineering. The entire concept is just plain stupid. Who thought this was a great idea? Let's take all vehicles with two or more occupants and encourage them to dash across five lanes of traffic to enter and exit carpool lanes.

Those that run our government would have us believe they always know what is best for us, but they continue to make blunder after blunder after blunder, year after year. Gridlock will never be avoided by car-pools, van-pools, diamond lanes, building more freeways, new rules by the Air Quality Management District board or threats of more tickets by the police for jaywalkers or blocked intersections. The only solution is to change the working hours of the largest group of people using the freeways from noon to 8 p.m. This group would include all those who work for city, county, state and federal government in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino, excluding employees from the police, fire, post office, Caltrans, hospitals and the Armed Forces.

Re "Car-Poolers Signal a Liking for Slow Lane," Feb. 9: I was appalled at Wayne King's revelation on why we Orange County drivers choose not to use the carpool lanes. I am assuming he speaks for the rest of Drivers for Highway Safety when he claims we Orange County drivers are simply "stupid." I guess King hasn't ever been stuck in the carpool lane for several miles behind an early model car while the rest of traffic is zipping by. As he may or may not know, most of Orange County's carpool lanes have only one lane.

The Deukmejian Administration has rejected a demand from Southern California air-quality regulators that one of the new lanes on the Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley be designated a diamond lane, officials said Friday. Administration officials have "told us to bug off," said Larry Berg, a director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

When transportation officials opened car-pool lanes on the crippled Santa Monica Freeway this week, their decision awakened a ghost seemingly laid to rest nearly two decades ago. In an experiment turned public relations fiasco, transportation officials in 1976 converted two fast lanes on the jammed freeway into diamond lanes--meaning they were reserved for buses and car-pools--between Santa Monica and Downtown Los Angeles.