No Pain, No Gain at Congested El Toro Y : * Improvement Project Will Require Extra Patience at the Notorious Confluence

When you consider that the El Toro Y is only the second -most congested meeting of freeways in Orange County, it is easy to understand why traffic in this county is generally considered by transportation officials to be the worst in California.

The Y daily brings to a halt both cars and people’s patience at the meeting place of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways. Commuters even decide where to live and work based on its agonies. Residents of South County communities artfully plot alternate routes, only to meet others like them looking for a shortcut. Don’t tell them that the notorious Orange Crush--at the junction of the Garden Grove, Orange and Santa Ana freeways, near Anaheim Stadium--is the county’s worst bottleneck.

The ultimate test of inconvenience, especially in frugal Orange County, is whether people will tax themselves to get relief. Voters took matters in hand three years ago and reversed their celebrated unwillingness to approve tax increases. Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for traffic improvements, promised to target the Y. The work is now at hand: A number of improvements, including car-pool lanes, new off- ramps and parallel access roads, will collect and redistribute traffic in an effort to reduce the weaving that the layout of the Y now requires.

That’s all good news. But the work inevitably will cause some inconvenience and slowdowns due to construction work, despite the best efforts of transportation officials to minimize delays. Lots of pain, lots of gain, says Orange County Transportation Authority Chairman Gary L. Hausdorfer. He ought to know, as a San Juan Capistrano councilman who must navigate the tricky waters of the confluence en route to points in central and northern Orange County.

The $247-million freeway widening and remodeling project is to be completed by July, 1996. It won’t come on line a minute too soon for meandering and weary commuters.