Latest Toll Road in O.C. Is Major Test for Concept

The Eastern Toll Road--17 miles of asphalt ribbon cutting from the bedroom communities of the Inland Empire to the job centers of Orange County--will be dedicated today with the promise of gridlock-free commuting at a price.

But at up to $3.25 for a single trip, it remains to be seen how many will pay, even though the alternative--crawling along the Riverside and Costa Mesa freeways--is considered one of California’s most grueling commutes.

The fate of the $765-million Eastern Toll Road has implications far beyond Southern California, where world-famous traffic troubles and a shortage of public funds for road construction have created a laboratory of sorts for a new generation of pay roads. Orange County is leading the way: When the Eastern opens to the public Sunday, the county will have 41.5 miles of toll road as well as the 91 Express Lanes, which allow drivers to use two extra lanes on the Riverside Freeway for a fee.

These efforts, though, have met with lukewarm success at best, and officials have struggled to persuade commuters to use the toll roads.

The opening of the Eastern Toll Road is being watched closely by transportation planners across the country, some of whom say that if a toll road can’t thrive here, perhaps it won’t be accepted elsewhere.

“The jury is still out on these toll roads,” said Robert Poole, president of the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think tank that has studied the highways. “Failure of any kind sends a chill through the whole industry.”

The Eastern--on paper at least--should be a hit with the public because it is the only alternative to a traffic nightmare that will only get worse with growth. Planners predict a rush-hour time savings of 30 minutes on a trip from Corona to the Irvine Spectrum. That commute now averages around an hour and 15 minutes.

But Southern California’s car culture clearly hasn’t embraced the concept of paying to use the highway, even though toll roads have been a fixture of many eastern states for decades. A new Times Orange County Poll found that six in 10 residents oppose the construction of new toll roads, an attitude that troubles proponents of the roads.

“This is the land of the freeway,” said Pete Fielding, a UC Irvine professor who is a former director of the school’s Institute of Transportation Studies. “We dislike tollways because they restrict our choices, and we love freeways because they increase our choices.”

The Times Orange County Poll, conducted in July, found toll roads far less popular with residents than other transportation initiatives, including light rail and even carpool lanes.

On the subject of toll roads, many motorists don’t mince words.

“I hate them,” said Dave Ciambrone, a 53-year-old Lake Forest resident.

“Once you open Pandora’s box, every new road will be a toll road,” added David Gillis, 62, of Anaheim Hills. “I find them distasteful.”

But some experts say there simply isn’t money available for the grand freeway projects of the past, leaving toll collections as perhaps the only way to build major highways.

“What people fail to realize,” said Peter Samuel, editor and publisher of Maryland-based Toll Roads Newsletter, “is that the issue isn’t a choice of toll road or a freeway. The issue is a toll road or no road.”

Option Pursued a Decade Ago

The prospect of no money for new roads coupled with a booming population persuaded a group of Orange County businessmen to turn to toll roads a decade ago.

Orange County officials had long complained of trouble competing for a fair share of the transportation money pot with Los Angeles County. If the state wouldn’t pay for needed roads, the group reasoned, then another source of funding had to be found.

Their solution was raising private money through tax-free municipal bonds. The Transportation Corridor Agencies--public “sunset” agencies that will cease operations when the bill for the roads is paid--were created to build 67 miles of toll roads, at a cost of more than $4 billion.

But the business of building roads has hit some potholes, from the cost of mitigating environmental harm to the mixed response from commuters.

The original traffic projections for Orange County’s first toll road--the San Joaquin Hills--had to be reduced significantly and the debt refinanced in 1997 after traffic fell far short of expectations. A year after the road opened in November 1996, traffic still lagged more than 40% behind original projections. But the number of users has been steadily climbing in recent months.

The opening of the Eastern Toll Road is a year ahead of schedule. The road runs through largely undeveloped land in the foothills between Yorba Linda and Irvine. But many morning commuters will come from the tract homes of Riverside and San Bernardino counties on their way to jobs in Orange County.

The Inland Empire is a mecca for affordable homes but has a relatively weak job base, causing the heavy traffic some call a virtual parking lot across suburban county lines. Officials have discussed a variety of solutions to the gridlock, including one controversial proposal to dig a tunnel under the Santa Ana Mountains linking Riverside and Orange counties.

Operators hope to win over skeptics the first week, when the road can be used free of charge from Oct. 18 through 25.

Tollway officials estimate that 48,000 cars a day will pass through the main toll plaza by 2000. A seven-mile western extension of the road toward Tustin is expected to open by early next year.

But some question whether those estimates are overly optimistic, given the experiences with other toll roads across the nation.

The once-heralded Dulles Greenway in Virginia, for example, has struggled to make interest payments on its $348-million debt, forcing the private investors to make a deal with creditors to avoid foreclosure. The failure chilled what was once a red-hot concept and led some experts to question whether Orange County’s plans are more ambitious than the need.

“They’ve built for a much greater need than they have right now,” said Fielding, who considers the Orange County projects a disappointment in large part because the agency has failed to put in place “variable pricing” of the roads.

Variable pricing is similar to the different rates a telephone company uses for peak and off-hours. Backers say such pricing strategy encourages commuters to use the roads on weekends and non-rush-hour times because the toll is cheaper. TCA experimented with reduced weekend pricing this summer but said the result was a loss in revenue.

Time is the key enemy of privately backed toll roads in California and elsewhere. Roads financed with private money do not have the luxury of easing into popularity. The Dulles Greenway failed investors in large part because the recession of the early 1990s curtailed development the road’s backers had counted on. Still, few doubt the road will be an important transportation link in the area in years to come.

No one questions that an already bad commuting climate in Southern California will get worse. Fielding, the UCI professor, said some estimates have commute times as long as three hours by 2020. So the construction of roads is not just about public policy and urban planning for Southern Californians; it goes straight to the issue of quality of life.

Even so, experts doubt that few--if any--major new road projects will be financed exclusively through public money. Gas taxes, which funded the bulk of interstate construction and many other road works from the mid-1950s on, no longer generate the revenues needed to both repair the aging infrastructure and build new roads.

Still, the risk in road building for those more interested in turning a buck than serving the public good is clear. The fundamental problem is how to make money from a toll road. As a private contractor in the road building business complained to Samuel’s publication: “You spend millions, and you try to make it back in quarters.”

What, Pay to Drive on a ‘Freeway’?

In California those quarters have to be counted on from a commuting population not accustomed to having to pay to take a drive.

“I don’t believe in America that we should have to pay to use our roads,” said Scott McDonald, 69, of Anaheim Hills. “I think these toll roads in Orange County are going to go broke. They aren’t doing nearly what they projected.”

Any California toll road runs headfirst into the generations-old tradition of the “freeway”--the uniquely Golden State term originally coined because planners believed traffic on the roads would be “free-flowing.”

But long after that concept has become laughable, Californians have held fast to the idea of them being, at least, free of cost.

Up until recent years, toll roads were virtually unknown west of the Mississippi River, where the wide-open interstates born out of the Eisenhower administration road building boom became part of the region’s psyche.

While motorists such as McDonald cling to the memories of a noncongested freeway system, others say they are ready to consider anything that gets them out of the head-splitting traffic.

Even Ciambrone, an avowed toll road hater, admits the current drive from Riverside County to the coast is a nightmare. He calls it “the Caltrans linear parking lot.”

Still, he said he is not sure he would use the Eastern Toll Road. After all, he said, he won’t even use the San Joaquin Hills tollway when faced with major traffic jams on his way to work.

Chris Hayden, 45, has no such hesitation. The Costa Mesa resident drives 30,000 miles a year in Southern California for his job as an environmental inspector. Hayden--who said he loves toll roads and anything else that will get him to where he is going faster--is the customer whom toll road proponents are banking on.

“I don’t see how you can do these drives and keep your sanity,” Hayden said. “Life is too short. I’d be in heaven if they’d put toll express lanes on the [San Diego Freeway]. I’d use it all the time.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

New Road Roll Out

Transportation planners hope the Eastern Toll Road, which opens Sunday, will ease freeway congestion between Corona and Irvine. Commuters can test drive the new toll road for free Oct. 18-25.

(map)

How the toll plaza works

FasTrak:

1. Antennae read FasTrak transponder and driver’s prepaid account is charged

Cash Payment:

1. Lane entry sensor determines toll by weight, type of vehicle

2. Toll is paid, signal turns green

3. If vehicle leaves while signal is red, camera shoots license plate. Violators are ticketed by mail.

How To Get a Transponder

The new toll road for free from Oct.18 through Oct. 25. After that, you can pay cash or automatically with a FasTrak transponder. How to get one:

IN PERSON

Toll Road Service Centers

Telephone: 949-580-2165 (for all centers) Anaheim Hills

731 S. Weir Canyon Road, Suite 141

Hours: Tues.-Fri. 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sat. 8:00 a.m. to 5:30p.m. Irvine

30 Fairbanks, Suite 100

Hours: Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Laguna Niguel

27995 Greenfield Drive

Hours: Tues.-Fri. 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

BY TELEPHONE, FAX OR MAIL Call 1-800-378-TRAK

Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for transponders, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for other information.

ONLINE

Web address: https://www.tcagencies.comcq

Rates:

$30 minimum

$30 deposit required if paying by cash or check

Comparing O.C. freeways and toll roads

*--*

Freeway Length Width Construction Orange County (miles) (feet) (dates) I-5 44.38 80-220 1953-1970 I-405 24.18 105-218 1964-1969 SR-22 13.16 58-132 1963-1967 SR-55 17.83 76-204 1962-1966 SR-57 11.72 77-146 1969-1976 SR-91 18.91 66-180 1958-1971 San Joaquin Hills (73) 15.00 76-180 1993-1996 Foothill (241)* 28.00 102-196 1991-2003 Eastern (241/261/133)* 24.00 121-230 1995-1999

*--*

* When completed

*--*

Point of highest Freeway Location avg. daily volume I-5 Lake Forest Dr. 328,000 I-405 Seal Beach Blvd. 328,000 SR-22 I-5/SR-57 junction 206,000 SR-55 McFadden St. 241,000 SR-57 Orangethorpe Ave. 234,000 SR-91 Lakeview Ave. 256,000

*--*

San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor (73): 74,000

Foothill Transportation Corridor (241): 38,000*

Eastern Transportation Corridor (241/261), Windy Ridge Toll Plaza: 48,000* * when completed

Sources: Michelle Miller, Transportation Corridor Agencies; Rose Orem, Caltrans

Graphics reporting by JANICE JONES DODDS and BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times