Philip Harding has been commuting from his cliffside Rancho Palos Verdes home to Anaheim’s Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc. since Ronald Reagan was president.
Harding, chief executive of circuit board maker Multi-Fineline, is part of a brewing demographic shift.
In a matter of years, he and other Los Angeles residents commuting to Orange County will overtake those who live in OC and drive to work in L.A.
OC long has imported more workers from the Inland Empire,more than 44,000 people each day drive to OC from Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to figures from the Orange County Transportation Authority.
About 14,000 OC residents go to the Inland Empire each day for work.
Another 13,000 come here each day from San Diego County, versus 7,000 going from OC to San Diego.
But the looming shift with L.A. is a symbolic one, a milestone in OC’s development from an early suburb of its bigger neighbor to a jobs magnet.
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“This trend repeats what happened in San Francisco in the 1990s,” said county Supervisor Chris Norby.
At that time, many professionals who lived in the city commuted in growing numbers to booming Silicon Valley.
No one knows for sure when this commuter “flip” with L.A. will take place. Those who study demographic changes contend the reversal is due in the next few years.
“If the economy continues as it is now, that turning point could be reached in 10 years,” said Paul Taylor, executive director of planning development and commuter services for the Orange County Transportation Authority.
By 2025, 315,000 OC daily commuters are projected to go to L.A., down from about 380,000 now, according to OCTA.
They’ll be outnumbered by 415,000 L.A. residents driving to work each day in OC by 2025, up from about 238,000 today.
Lucrative Jobs
Behind the shift: high-paying jobs.
OC’s strength is “high-quality jobs that pay above average compensation,” said Ross DeVol, director of regional economics at Santa Monica-based think tank Milken Institute.
The county ranked No. 17 nationally among urban areas for job creation and economic performance in 2005, according to a Milken report. A year earlier, OC ranked 35th.
The greater Los Angeles area came in at No. 124, up from 140th in 2004.
“Los Angeles hasn’t been creating high-paying jobs at the same rate as Orange County,” DeVol said. “Even if you live in L.A. County, if an employment opportunity presents itself in Orange County, that’s where you have to go to work.”
OC already has some high profile L.A. commuters.
Harding of Multi-Fineline, known as M-Flex, is one of them. He drives 45 miles a day to and from work in Anaheim.
Why hasn’t Harding moved closer to work?
“My wife is so happy where we’re at,” he said. “It’s nice where we live, and we have a nice view.”
Harding is among those coming to OC for a high-paying job. His compensation was $460,000 last year. M-Flex counted a recent market value of $1.5 billion.
He’s not alone.
Howard Phanstiel, former chief executive of Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., now is an executive vice president at UnitedHealth Group Inc. of Minnesota, which bought PacifiCare last year.
Phanstiel still makes a daily drive from Brentwood to Cypress.
Others at PacifiCare also drive from West L.A., including executive vice presidents Sharon Garrett and Jacqueline Kosecoff.
Michael de Leon, general manager of Buena Park Downtown shopping mall, drives even further.
He commutes close to two hours one way from his Northridge home.
“My wife loves our house in Northridge and her parents live with us,” said de Leon, who has been making the daily 100-mile commute for a year. “To get rid of the house would be to get rid of her parents.”
San Diego Commuters
They’re not just coming from the north.
Vernon Aguirre, California regional executive at Banco Popular, leaves his house at 5:45 a.m. daily to catch a train from his Coronado Island home in San Diego to come to the bank’s California headquarters, which is in the process of moving to Anaheim from Santa Fe Springs.
“I’ve been doing this since 1997,” said Aguirre, who gets a small break on his trek with the move to Anaheim.
“I’ve seen judges and attorneys on the train. People have been doing this for years,” Aguirre said.
Another executive who commutes from San Diego County is Joe Davis, president of The Irvine Company’s Irvine Community Development Co. He lives in Rancho Santa Fe.
By 2025, 21,000 are projected to drive from San Diego to OC, versus 11,000 going from OC to San Diego.
The trend isn’t new for the Inland Empire, which long has sent people to work in OC. That’s set to continue.
By 2025, 72,000 people are projected to commute to OC from the Inland Empire, versus 32,000 people going the other way.
Of course, commuting isn’t easy.
M-Flex’s Harding said a decade ago he had a close call early one evening on the Riverside (91) Freeway.
Three 16-wheelers stopped fast in front of him, leading him to skid underneath an unhooked trailer.
The roof peeled off the Chrysler New Yorker he was driving.
The 73-year-old Harding said he ducked at the right time but ended up getting a dozen stitches on his forehead from the ripped metal.
The next day, Harding said he rolled out of bed at 6 a.m. and drove the congested freeways to work.
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Handling the Traffic
A looming reversal of commuter traffic from Los Angeles to Orange County is adding to the rallying cry of transportation planners: extend Measure M.
Extending the county’s half-cent sales tax for transportation projects is needed to handle a growing influx of workers who drive to jobs in OC, they say.
First approved in 1990, Measure M is set to raise about $4.2 billion by the time it expires in 2011. In November, voters are set to weigh in to extend Measure M for another 30 years.
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Garden Grove Freeway in Orange: $495 million in fixes under way |
Here’s a look at what Measure M is funding and could finance down the road:
n A doubling of the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway from north of the Riverside (91) Freeway to Buena Park. Construction is set to begin in the spring. The four-year project aims to widen the remaining two miles of the 5 in OC to the Los Angeles County line. Completion of the $314 million project is scheduled for early 2010.
n A $495 million refurbishment of the Garden Grove (22) Freeway. Work is under way and is set to wrap up in November.
n Improvements to the Riverside (91) Freeway. A recent study looked at ways to ease chronic congestion along the 91. Three options are under consideration, including a 12-mile tunnel through the Santa Ana Mountains. Another proposal is to build an elevated freeway parallel to the 91. The final proposal would add at least one lane in each direction to the existing 91. Costs range from $700 million to more than $6 billion for the tunnel.
n Adding a 4.7-mile lane to the northbound Orange (57) Freeway from Placentia to Brea. Construction is set to start in 2008 and finish by 2010. The cost: $68 million.
,Pat Maio
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Boeing’s Super Commuters, Hoteling Centers
A few decades ago, Bryan Adams couldn’t work at home via the Internet.
To avoid traffic, he hopped on a private plane to get from an airport near his Murrieta home in Riverside County to the old Hughes Aircraft Co. site in El Segundo.
The 35-minute flight cost Adams several hundreds of dollars monthly. But taking to the sky got him to work by 7:30 a.m.
In 2000, Boeing Co. acquired Hughes and Adams got shuffled to operations in Orange County, where he’s done information technology work in Anaheim and Huntington Beach.
In late 2004, he mounted a motorcycle to get to work,55 miles to Anaheim and 72 miles to Huntington Beach.
Adams, who said he once dodged a loose muffler on the Riverside (91) Freeway, may get to hang up some of this heavy commuting.
Boeing recently opened a “hoteling center” that workers can use as a layover point to plug in their laptops and get work done.
The Anaheim hoteling center is the easternmost Southern California site Boeing owns. It provides a stopping off point for workers from the Inland Empire who might not be able to easily get to operations in Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Seal Beach and El Segundo.
“I’m getting a portion of my life back that I didn’t have before,” Adams said. “Working virtually saves me on time, gas and stress.”
The hoteling centers boost productivity, said Douglas E. Sedgwick, director of facilities and services for Boeing in Anaheim.
With them, Boeing can attract and keep skilled people who see virtual work as a benefit. Absenteeism and turnover also are reduced, said Sedgwick, who gave up his own 6th floor office with a bathroom and conference room last October to work virtually.
The centers are part of Boeing’s approach to better manage its far-flung Southern California empire, assembled via acquisitions.
In the long run, Boeing expects to reduce office and parking requirements, saving millions of dollars annually.
As of January, Boeing had 2,000 people registered to work “virtually”,meaning they must give up their offices or cubicles.
Boeing plans to have more than 20,000 working virtually by 2009.
The hoteling centers have copy machines, docking stations for laptops and other office trappings. The first one opened in Washington state in 2002.
There now are 16 at U.S. sites with five more set to open this year. The Anaheim center opened last month.
Bob Martin, a manufacturing specialist with Boeing, now works out of the Anaheim center, about three miles from his Placentia home.
“This center is perfect for me,” said Martin, who gave up his Long Beach office last October to run workshops for the company’s Southern California facilities. “I feel so much better. It allows me to have much more job satisfaction. I’m not fighting the daily grind of traffic.”
,Pat Maio
