The 5 Freeway between Mission Viejo and the San Diego County line will be getting a little wider in coming years.
In preparation for the widening and interchange improvement project -- $275-million for the stretch between San Juan Creek and Avenida Pico alone -- the Orange County Transportation Authority and Caltrans have been designing and gathering public input.
The latest part of the construction starts in February with work on the Ortega Highway interchange in San Juan Capistrano. Caltrans spokeswoman Gloria Roberts said there will be intermittent closures during the two-year project, mostly between midnight and 7 a.m.
The Ortega interchange project will cause four extended closures, each lasting three to six weeks: The first will affect the north 5 onramp; the second will be the south 5 onramp; the third will close Ortega between the south 5 onramp and Del Obispo; and the last will shut down Ortega between El Camino Real and Del Obispo.
"But those aren't for a long time," Roberts said.
Locals have been bracing for a traffic mess at the Ortega ramps, and Caltrans officials held a public meeting Thursday to discuss the project.
Meanwhile, work at the San Juan Creek interchange is set to wrap up in March, Roberts said, and the Camino De Estrella interchange work should finish in May. The Estrella project may cause intermittent nighttime closures until spring, she said.
Set to begin in October are carpool lane additions in both directions of the 5, along with soundwalls and retaining walls from San Juan Creek Road to Avenida Vista Hermosa. That project is expected to finish in 2015. Overlapping in schedule will be the next section of work -- continuing lanes and walls from Vista Hermosa through Avenida Pico and revamping the Pico interchange, according to the OCTA website.
This part of the project will begin in 2014 and finish in 2017, according to current OCTA estimates.
The projects further out include adding a new general-purpose lane to the freeway from Laguna Niguel to north of Mission Viejo, and a carpool lane from El Toro Road to Alicia Parkway. That work isn't expected to commence until 2018.
There will be community open houses in February regarding this process. Those dates and locations are on the website. There will be a public hearing this summer.
From Mission Viejo to San Juan, OCTA is working to remove the double yellow lines along carpool lanes so vehicles can cross in and out of the lanes at any point. Some traffic studies have shown this setup to be safer, said OCTA's Laura Scheper.
