COUNTYWIDE : State Makes Deal With Tollway Firm

State officials released details Monday of an agreement that allows a private firm to build a 10-mile tollway in Anaheim along the Riverside Freeway, including a plan to dramatically expand the project and a two-year guarantee of free use for car-pools.

The franchise agreement between the state and California Private Transportation Corp. also allows the tollway firm to profit handsomely if enough vehicles use the new lanes, providing for a 17% return each year as well as potential bonuses.

Under the agreement, the firm is slated to finance, build and operate an $88.3-million tollway consisting of two lanes in each direction along the freeway median between the Riverside County line and the Costa Mesa Freeway in Anaheim.

But the agreement, which was hammered out Dec. 31 with California Department of Transportation officials, also leaves open the option of stretching the tollway much farther into both Riverside and Orange counties.

Dennis O’Connor, a spokesman for California Private Transportation, said the document gives the firm leeway to extend the toll lanes through Orange County all the way to the Los Angeles County line if the idea pencils out financially.

Stanley T. Oftelie, Orange County Transportation Commission executive director, said he wants to have a formal agreement permitting extension of the toll lanes at least to the Orange Freeway by the time the project is under construction later this year.

“It’s a new era,” he said. “It’s exciting for us.”

The franchise agreement also gives the state permission for the firm to expand the toll road into Riverside County as far as Interstate 15 if transportation officials there go along with the idea. Currently, car-pool lanes are planned on the freeway in Riverside County.

O’Connor said the extensions in Orange and Riverside counties were being considered apart from the 10-mile stretch that has already been approved. The firm expects to begin work on that segment in the fall, with the toll lanes fully operational by 1994.

Jack Reagan, executive director of the Riverside Transportation Commission, said he plans to meet with California Private Transportation Corp. officials Wednesday but does not expect a decision by the commission on the issue until at least March.

Reagan said he had not yet evaluated the franchise agreement but was “a little troubled” by the 17% return that the tollway firm could reap each year.

The franchise agreement permits car pools of two or more people to use the toll lanes for at least two years for free. After that, the lanes could be shut off to free use by car pools only if the tollway firm demonstrates that it is unable to pay off its investment.