Obstacle Course for Anaheim Motorists

Marsha Roberts has some advice for travelers bound for Anaheim, home of the Happiest Place on Earth.

“Don’t come! It’s just not worth it,” said Roberts, an accountant who was stuck in gridlock at 5:45 a.m. on a recent workday.

Roberts’ gripe is the multibillion-dollar improvement projects that have converged near Disneyland. The result: traffic jams and construction barriers that have lasted for months, badly fraying the nerves of tourists and commuters alike and deeply denting the pocketbooks of local businesses.

“It takes everything I know to get to work now,” said Cindy Ratzon, a longtime resident who has watched in recent months as exit after exit on the Santa Ana Freeway and street after street within city limits has been closed because of construction, making maps next to useless.

“Every freeway exit is cut off, every little side street is torn up. I don’t know what Disney and all the city planners were thinking, but it’s not working,” said Ratzon, 37.

A Disneyland spokesman downplayed the amusement park’s direct role in the construction disruption. The park is currently expanding into one of its parking lots, and most of the work is on Disney property, said spokesman Ray Gomez.

But the theme park is the thrust behind the sprawling construction effort that requires motorists to proceed with care. City officials have made no secret of their eagerness to accommodate the Magic Kingdom’s expansion efforts, including dedicating more than $400 million to a variety of improvements to the city’s tourism area.

Much of the work began over a year ago. And much of it won’t be done before 2000. But transportation experts say the construction work is long overdue for one of the most heavily traveled areas in a county that thrives on tourist dollars.

“It’s the first major investment in infrastructure in the area since Disneyland opened in 1955,” said Bret Colson, a spokesman for Anaheim. “There has been explosive growth, almost nonstop, for more than 40 years. . . . Without updating, there was real concern that we would begin losing market share and, like it or not, the city’s fortunes are tied to tourism.”

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More than 40 million tourists visit Orange County each year, pumping more than $5 billion into the county’s economy. Roughly half of the county’s tourists visit Anaheim and its many attractions. In 1996, more than 15 million people visited Disneyland.

Among other things, Colson said, workers are widening streets, adding sewer and water lines, improving underground utilities, installing bus turnouts and beautifying streets through landscaping--all of which requires massive digging, blockage of driveways and, in some areas, the temporary removal of sidewalks.

The situation is exacerbated by the simultaneous widening of the nearby Santa Ana Freeway, a $1.1-billion project aimed at increasing traffic flow by adding lanes, reconfiguring offramps and, ultimately, rerouting Katella Avenue under the freeway.

“It’s just one of those quirks in timing,” said Thomas Knox, a spokesman for the Orange County Transportation Authority, which is overseeing both projects. Rather than stretch out the work at the two sites over 10 years, officials say, they are trying to get it over with as quickly as possible.

And it will get worse before it gets better. Last week, the transit authority called for repairs to 114 trouble spots--roads across the county that are cracked, worn-out or marked by potholes.

Despite the money spent on efforts to coordinate traffic projects and alert motorists to the quickest and smoothest traveling routes, traffic is just a reality for commuters and visitors.

“What we’re trying to do,” Colson said, “is get people to focus on the big picture and realize that, while there are some short-term drawbacks, in the long run this is what is best for all of us in the city.”

That doesn’t lend much comfort to residents running late for work or business owners hit in their pockets.

Mohammad Qandeel, head mechanic and night manager at the Chevron station at Katella Avenue and Harbor Boulevard, says that auto repairs have dropped 85% and gas sales 30% since construction began.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Qandeel, who recently had to lay off two mechanics and cut back on the station’s hours.

And at the Spirits of St. Germaine liquor store, where business has decreased about 50%, night manager Paul Valdivez has his own view of the street improvement projects.

“It’s good for Disney,” he said. “It’s not good for us.”

City officials disagree, arguing that in the long run what’s good for Disney is good for almost everyone else in Anaheim, too.