At its meeting on April 27, the OCTA Board of Directors voted to take the lead on the Interstate 405 (I-405) Improvement Project. The $1.7 billion project will improve the San Diego (I-405) Freeway between Costa Mesa and the Los Angeles county line, an area traveled by more than 370,000 vehicles a day, making it the busiest stretch of highway in the nation.
Set to begin construction in 2018, the project will deliver express lanes between State Route 73 (SR-73) and Interstate 605 (I-605) in addition to one, regular general-purpose lane in each direction from Euclid Street to I-605.
Promised through Measure M, Orange County’s sales tax for transportation improvements, the general-purpose lanes will be constructed in cooperation with Caltrans and funded by a combination of local, state and federal funds. The express lanes will be financed and paid for by those who choose to pay a toll and use the 405 Express Lanes.
A draft 405 Express Lanes toll policy, a financing plan, and a traffic and revenue study will help determine how the 405 Express Lanes will operate. In addition, any excess toll revenue remaining in the 405 corridor will be spent on local transportation improvement projects.
Adding the 405 Express Lanes benefits all people who use the I-405. In 2040, it’s expected to take 29 minutes to travel during rush hour from SR-73 to I-605 in the general-purpose lanes. That commute can be reduced to 13 minutes if a driver chooses to take the Express Lanes. Without the Express Lanes, the commute in the general-purpose lanes would nearly double and take almost an hour to travel the same stretch.
The project will be built utilizing the design-build delivery model, saving time and money. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2018 with improvements open to traffic in 2022.
For more information, visit octa.net/405improvement.
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