Payoff for Patience at El Toro Y

People unfamiliar with Orange County may be amused or puzzled by some of the freeway lingo. They learn, for example, that the “Orange Crush” is not a soft drink but rather an intricate intersection of freeways. That former bottleneck has undergone considerable improvement, delivering smoother traffic patterns in the environs of Santa Ana, Anaheim and Garden Grove. Now the county’s other major intersection, the so-called El Toro Y, is about to receive the final benefits of a $166-million face-lift. It will offer a remarkable 26 lanes at the widest point, where the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways converge. The result of three years of construction will open Friday, providing car pool connectors designed to ease rush-hour congestion.

The entire undertaking is a tribute to the county’s foresight in planning. About 100,000 more vehicles a day will be able to travel this section. With the growth of the county, that additional freeway capacity will be welcome. In 1990, the county’s voters wisely passed Measure M, a sales tax measure for transportation improvements, which paid for most of the work.

Orange County Transportation Authority officials are cautiously refraining from celebrating this achievement as the biggest interchange in the world. However the new confluence of major roads stacks up in the “biggest and best” sweepstakes, it’s welcome. The intersection of the 405 and 5 freeways has been a nightmare over the years as the suburbs of Orange County spread relentlessly southward.

In the early years of this decade, people made important job and lifestyle decisions only after considering, along with housing cost and location, the time they inevitably would have to spend sitting in traffic on the Y. Now, long-suffering motorists can take pleasure in a payoff for patience tested during the period of construction.