Image: OC Register

Trumpeting the dubious claim that the answer to regional car congestion is funding highway expansion, Orange County politicians and press are celebrating the federal government’s decision to allocate $68 million in stimulus funds for the expansion of the I-91 between Riverside County and the 241 Toll Road.  As we’ve seen in the past, the governments claims that road widenings are good public policy go completely unchallenged in the press even as the state tries to devise no ways to battle sprawl development.

This short story from Inland Today follows the typical template for a piece on road widening, a couple of facts about the issue are surrounded by claims that the widening will make everyone’s life better.  In this case, the facts are some information about how stimulus funding is allocated sandwiched between two paragraphs about how great the 91 widening is for everyone.

The great irony is, that even as the OC Register declares in its headline, "Feds approve $68 million to help drivers unclog the 91;" the Sacramento Bee reports that drivers really are helping to unclog California freeways.  Of course, we’re doing it by driving less, not by…ok, I’m not really sure how "drivers" are helping unclog the 91 in the Register’s world.