A 5 Freeway widening project from the Orange County border to the 605 Freeway that opened in July 2023 is showing reduced travel time, according to Caltrans data.

City officials, commuters and even this columnist say they see similar results for the nearly $1.9 billion, 6.7-mile widening project to add a general-purpose lane and a carpool lane on each side to the existing six-lane freeway.

“Before construction started, there were a pitiful three lanes each way,” Darren Ramsey of Pico Rivera, who commutes to Riverside, said. “It would be stop-and-go all the way to and from the 605.”

Now, it’s a lot better, Ramsey said.

“You don’t see brake lights,” he said.

The on- and off-lanes are safer and more modern. They’re more wide open. You’re not pinched into three lanes.”

Marc Bischoff, spokesman for the Caltrans District 7, in an email said travel time data retrieved from ClearGuide for the 5 Freeway shows improved shorter and improved travel times.

ClearGuide is an online application designed to assist transportation operations and planning staff in enhancing mobility, reliability, and safety, Bischoff wrote.

“It ingests, analyzes, and visualizes complex transportation data, providing users with real-time conditions and enabling informed decision-making through comprehensive maps, reports, and charts that highlight congestion and offer contextual information on the roadway network, incidents, and weather,” he said.

ClearGuide shows a savings of as much as more than eight minutes was saved during the afternoon rush hour and three and nearly four minutes in morning rush hour.

At 4 p.m., nearly 14 minutes was required to drive from the Orange County border to the 605 Freeway in 2018, according to Clear Guide. The time was reduced to nearly six minutes by 2024.

Nearly nine minutes was required at 9 a.m. By 2024, nearly six minutes was needed.

ClearGuide leverages third-party speed data from GPS-enabled devices, collected in real time, to provide advanced analytics and identify problem areas. It stores historical data for performance and trend analysis and integrates additional data sets, such as incidents, lane closures, weather, and traffic volumes, for thorough analysis.

Construction of the project began in 2011 with the Carmenita Road interchange, one of six that were rebuilt. The Valley View Avenue was the last to be completed.

However, discussion of the plan dates back to 1989 at a Santa Fe Springs City Council meeting I was covering.

Caltrans proposed widening to 12 or 14 lanes that then would have taken three Santa Fe Springs council members’ homes as well as a then-proposed auto row. Neither ever happened.

No one expected that proposal to ever happen because of what would have been a horrendous cost, city officials told me then.

Soon after, six cities — Buena Park, Commerce, La Miraea, Norwalk Santa Fe Springs — established the I-5 Joint PowerAuthority, which initially fought the proposed widening to 12 or 14 lanes and then successfully sought funding.

Former Norwalk Councilman Mike Mendez, who served as chairman of the Joint Powers Authority for 27 years until 2017, said he is impressed with the project.

“It has been a real plus for the communities,” Mendez said. “It’s a good footprint and traffic is moving pretty well.”

Observations by this reporter early morning just before 9 a.m. on Dec. 17 showed wide-open flowing traffic, not the stop-and-go I would have seen before the lanes were added.

In fact, don’t tell California Highway Patrol — but traffic was averaging what appeared to be as high as 75 mph. Northbound traffic doesn’t start to slow down until about Pioneer Boulevard, bearing out what Ramsey said.

Pioneer Boulevard is near where the freeway shrinks to an eight-lane configuration. The carpool lane goes away when the 5 Freeway connects with the 605 and traffic starts to back up, Ramsey said.

Little is happening on extending the project, Bischoffd wrote.

Metro and Caltrans started the environmental document/scoping phase of the segment of the 710 Freeway from north of the Florence Avenue interchange to Paramount Boulevard in 2017, Bischoff wrote.

“But the community opposed the right of way impacts,” he said. “In 2020, L.A. Metro’s Board approved action for the project team to put the project on hold to consider alternative options that avoid or minimize the right of way impact and to conduct outreach meetings with the public for input.

The study is still in progress, Bischoff said.

But as far as the project, it’s worked great, Mark Stowell, La Mirada public works director said.

“I come in every morning on the 91 and it used to stop and start,” Stowell said, referring to coming to work at La Mirada City Hall.

“Now, you don’t really stop at least through Norwalk,” he said.