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Newshound (Newshound)
| | Posted on Friday, September 10, 2004 - 8:07 am: | |
Sept. 9-The Tunnel is driving force at these open houses,OC Register
By FRANK MICKADEIT
The Orange County Register
The News
How to more efficiently move more people between Riverside and Orange counties? That is the topic of a series of "open houses" that began Tuesday night in Anaheim Hills and will continue tonight in Irvine and Tuesday in Mission Viejo.
But is that what we, as proper O.C. snobs, really want to do? I'd seal off all the O.C. exits from the 91 and let the sucker just dump right into L.A. If 909 folk want to get to O.C. bad enough, they can fly into John Wayne.
As for O.C. people wanting to go to Riverside County, who are they kidding? My chest starts getting tight just crossing the county line going east.
Yes, it's going to pay to keep close attention as this plays out, and the real drama won't be about widening the 91.
It's going to be all about The Tunnel. The one they want to bore through the Santa Ana Mountains and have exit somewhere down in south county - perhaps right at the 133-241 merge, blasting right through that giant new obelisk they say is a cell phone antenna but which I believe is statuary erected to a pagan deity by Foothill Ranch housewives in hopes of a successful garage sale season.
The way these open houses are structured, there's little chance of conflict. No formal presentation. No open public comment. You walk in and are encouraged to visit six "stations" that feature displays and hand-out literature on topics such as "Growth." There are plenty of helpful transportation types to answer individual questions.
"Where is the 'Damn Big Tunnel' station?" I asked Riverside transportation spokesman John Standiford in as discreet a tone as I could muster, given that I've waited much of my life for a federally subsidized project the size of Grand Coulee Dam to come to Orange County and to revel at the specter of a gazillion nominally anti-tax zealots sucking up to the public trough like Robert Byrd on speed.
Money's to be made, boys, and if you're an O.C. engineering or planning firm that doesn't already have a foot in the door, you are already falling behind. LSA, RBF - and probably other O.C. firms that sadly have jettisoned the names of the people who founded them - already have a piece of the action.
You won't find many - or perhaps any - references to The Tunnel at these open houses, though. We won't see anything, ahem, concrete until this winter, when conceptual drawings will be released.
But don't worry that we're somehow behind the curve. Orange and Riverside county transportation planners have hired as the lead engineering coordinator Jacobs Engineering Group, which designed the fabulously unprofitable 73 toll road (but don't blame it for the bad economic projections). Jacobs in turn has retained the London-based engineering giant Halcrow.
And what, pray, does Halcrow pride itself for building over the last 75 years?
Damn Big Tunnels.
(See www.octa.net/91mis for meeting info.)
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