OCTA Chief Wants to Speed Projects, Including La Pata

Fifth District Supervisor Patricia Bates, the new head of the Orange County Transportation Authority board, says her priority is to cut red tape that holds up big transportation projects in Orange County.

“We want Congress to look at the environmental process with development of infrastructure projects,” Bates said. “It actually extends the time it takes to build a road by seven years. You can actually complete a road in two years, so we’re talking nine years it takes to complete a project.

“Look, in an emergency, like after the earthquakes, we were able to re-build in 1½,” Bates said. “It takes us a minimum of seven years before we even hit the dirt.”

Bates represents South Orange County on the board of supervisors. She replaced Jerry Amante and was unanimously selected as the OCTA board chairman Monday. She had been the vice chair, and that role now goes to Laguna Niguel Councilman Paul Glaab.

Monday also saw the welcoming of three new members: Mayors Don Bankhead of Fullerton, Larry Crandall of Fountain Valley and Peter Herzog of Lake Forest.

Bates said there were ways to streamline the process because local, federal and state environmental report processes often force agencies to repeat tests and copy efforts for each set of forms, adding not only years, but also hundreds of thousands of dollars to each project.

“I’ll be banging the gavel on getting those [projects] moving forward and probably be traveling to Washington to remind them that they are the answer to getting these projects moving forward,” Bates said.

Bates mentioned the La Pata extension project as one she wanted to speed up. She said that project would be important to keep vehicle trips off the highway in South County, thereby reducing traffic.

According to Orange County Public Works, the project would beef up the two miles of La Pata Avenue south of Ortega Highway in San Juan Capistrano and hook it up with San Clemente’s La Pata Avenue at Calle Saluda.

“San Clemente residents use I-5 as an arterial,” Bates said.

According to the public works website, the environmental report process for the La Pata extension will wrap up in the spring of this year.

Some of the other issues she said the OCTA would be focusing on in South Orange County will include signal synchronization. She said synching up the traffic signals has improved commutes significantly along Alicia Parkway, the road off of which she lives.

“From my door to the freeway, if I hit that first signal at the right time, is seven to 10 minutes faster” Bates said. “Developers in the old days built developments with theses little collector streets that dump out onto arterials, so you have 17 or 18 stoplights. The travel time on some of those roads in South County is really elongated.”