OC Cities

Map courtesy of Wikipedia

Orange County is not one place– see links, below– it’s actually a collection of 34 incorporated cities with dabs of unincorporated county here and there. The oldest city, Anaheim, was incorporated in 1870; the youngest, Aliso Viejo, didn’t reach cityhood until 2001.

Because the coastline cuts diagonally through the North/South line, directional terms in Orange County are often confused. “North” OC is generally the oldest inhabited portion, and is defined as “west of the 55 freeway.” South OC lies east of the 55. Towns and roads in North OC lie on a generally north-south/east-west grid; towns and roads in South County run roughly perpendicular to the coast.

North OC towns grew after WWII, and followed development trends in Los Angeles county with residential streets feeding suburban arterials which tended to max out at 4 lanes, sometimes divided. South county wasn’t developed until the 60s and 70s– is still going on, albiet at a slower pace– and favored street designs typical of planned communities: residential streets dumping onto collector streets, feeding arterials of 4, 6, and more lanes, usually divided.

Now cities in North OC are built out forcing engineers– in their own minds, at least– to choose between bicycles and cars. Even in cities where bike lanes have been on the street for decades, engineers are ripping them out to accommodate higher levels of car traffic. It’s in these cities that residents must organize to assure that Complete Street policies which serve all road users are implemented.

Generally, South County cities have not faced these build-out challenges– yet. So residents in these cities must organize now to see that bicycles are accepted as part of the traffic mix.