The Eastern Corridor: The Fast Ride to Riverside

On a dusty hilltop above the Riverside Freeway in Anaheim, an army of construction workers in orange vests ready themselves for action.

They board convoys of bulldozers, scrapers and 50-ton trucks with wheels 7 feet high to go about their daily work.

On this breezy site known as Windy Ridge, these workers and their machines have sliced a path some 1400 feet wide and 270 feet deep. Soon the path will be paved with 26 miles of concrete and then dotted by toll plazas of the Eastern Transportation Corridor, a roadway linking Riverside with Irvine.

Few Orange County residents have seen the construction work because the route is being built on land that was fenced off by its former owner, the Irvine Company. But since 1995, these workers have been moving hills, filling deep valleys and preparing to build some 60 bridges. When it is completed in 1999, the roadway will have cost $1.8 billion--about $70 million a mile.

On Friday, officials with the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the public body that is building three toll roads in Orange County, said the thoroughfare was 25% complete and on schedule to be opened in 1999. The Eastern will become the third toll road the agency operates. The San Joaquin Hills toll road is complete and the Foothill corridor is partially open.

Toll road officials estimate 102,000 vehicles will use the Eastern route daily during its first year of operation. That will be enough to make the payments on $1.5 billion of bonds that were sold to pay for the road.

Recently, TCA officials said they were receiving 51% less revenue from the San Joaquin toll road than had been projected.

The directors this month discussed refinancing their $1.2-billion bond measure. The discussion was held in a closed meeting, a practice some experts said may have violated the state’s open-meetings law. They said refinancing would lower their costs.

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TCA officials, who took reporters for a tour of the Eastern Transportation Corridor on Friday morning, said the new road will significantly slash commute time for many motorists, especially those who regularly travel between Irvine and Riverside. The 26-mile trip will cost $3.25 and take 30 minutes, less than half the time it now takes, TCA officials said.

“This roadway spells relief,” said Mike Endres, the corridor’s manager.

But one group’s traffic solution is another’s environmental disaster.

Local environmentalists point out that hundreds of acres of delicate land have been stripped of rare plants and wildlife and replaced with concrete.

“This is closest thing we have to true wilderness in Orange County,” said Mark Chamberlain, a Laguna Beach artist who has opposed construction of the toll roads. “This land has been excluded from public view for years, and the first chance many people will get to see it is when concrete is poured through it.”

Chamberlain and other environmentalists say the negative effects of the Eastern Transportation Corridor will be felt several years from now after the Irvine Company builds thousands more houses on its land surrounding the road.

Paul Beier, who has done research on cougars that inhabit the land, said the toll road is bad news for the animals. “The real damage will come when you put in more houses in areas where they now live,” he said.

Tollway officials acknowledge the construction has affected plant and wildlife, including nesting grounds for the California gnatcatcher, a songbird on the endangered species list. But they say they’ve taken sufficient measures to protect the environment.

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Slicing the Orange

What has three legs, is 1,400 feet wide, 270 feet deep, 26 miles long and will add 60 bridges? The next portion of Orange County’s toll road network. The Eastern Transportation Corridor has been cut through the county’s back country. Here’s where it will lead:

Source: Transportation Corridor Agencies