Now I'll believe it when I finally see it but we definitely could use these extra freeways.
http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=9674§ion=NEWS&year=2002&month=11&day=1
Traffic plan moved up
Proposal to put highway through Santa Ana Mountains gets boost.
By DAN NOWICKI
The Orange County Register
RELATED STORIES
• Federal support puts plan in fast lane
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration on Thursday backed a plan that includes a proposal to tunnel a highway through the Santa Ana Mountains from Riverside to south Orange County.
President George W. Bush in September issued an executive order streamlining the environmental review process, and on Thursday his administration named the Riverside plan and six others as ones that could move forward.
Transportation Department officials said it was the first time a president has intervened this way in local transportation projects.
The order is designed to ensure that federal agencies work in harmony.
The tunnel alternative – one of several proposals to ease congestion on the traffic-jammed Riverside (91) Freeway – would need approval from multiple federal agencies because it could cut through the Cleveland National Forest.
Portions of the plan are opposed by environmentalists, and some south-county residents fear the additional traffic.
Federal officials praise the plan's balance of land use, transportation needs and environmental issues such as habitat conservation, citing it as a model of integrated planning.
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta insisted that environmental standards wouldn't be sacrificed, but local environmentalists have misgivings.
"President Bush has been (loosening standards) all over the country," said Ray Chandos, of Trabuco Canyon-based Rural Canyons Conservation Fund. "But now it looks like his anti-environment policies are hitting much closer to home,"
