Laguna Loses Bid to Have Toll Road Left Out of SCAG’s Plan

Orange County’s first toll road was included in a regional transportation plan approved Thursday by the Southern California Assn. of Governments despite another attempt by Laguna Beach officials to block the proposed 15-mile highway.

Construction of the $465-million San Joaquin Hills toll road, which will run between the Costa Mesa Freeway and San Juan Capistrano and roughly parallel to the San Diego Freeway and Interstate 5, is to begin next year. The highway could be open to traffic by the mid-1990s.

But the project cannot begin unless it is included in SCAG’s “regional mobility plan.” The plan, updated every few years, lists roads eligible for state and federal funding in Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Imperial counties.

Laguna Beach officials oppose the toll road and scored a victory last week when they persuaded a SCAG environmental committee to recommend to the agency’s executive committee that it exclude the project from the regional plan. Construction of the toll road would destroy some of the county’s last wetlands in Laguna Canyon and open Laguna Beach to “a flood of traffic,” City Councilwoman Lida Campbell Lenney said.

It was Lenney who took Laguna Beach’s case to the SCAG environmental committee.

On Thursday, however, SCAG’s 20-member executive committee left the toll road in its master plan, agency spokesman Mario Guerra said.

“It is an important project that merits funding consideration,” Guerra said. “That road can assist in alleviating traffic in that part of Orange County.”

Stanley T. Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission, was sharply critical Thursday of attempts by Laguna Beach officials to derail the project.

He said they “tried to end-run the process” by seeking “sympathetic ears” on SCAG’s environmental committee. In the end, he said, city officials “got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.”

Oftelie acknowledged that had the project been deleted from the master plan, it would have been a setback for the long-debated roadway.

Lenney said Laguna Beach was not attempting “to sneak around anyone” but simply wanted a “chance to be heard.” She said reviews of the roadway’s potential environmental impact have not been adequate.

She also said there is no provision for replacing the wetlands in Laguna Canyon that will be destroyed by the project.

“We just want a thorough airing of the issues,” Lenney said. “I’m opposed to this project and felt it was my duty to seek out a body willing to listen.”