Toll Roads:: Great Idea but Be Careful How You Do It : Why Orange County--the toll-road trailblazer--is suddenly worries

Toll roads were painted as “a symbol of Eastern decadence” during a bitter debate in Sacramento in 1987, a sign of the passion they are capable of eliciting. But eventually decisions at the federal and state levels opened the door to building three that are now planned for Orange County, and a new chapter in the history of transportation in Southern California has begun--one not without pitfalls.

The public today is beginning to catch up with some of the issues the roads raise, but the concerns haven’t yet been fully addressed. These roads are different from proposals for fully private tollways that would run along median strips or river beds; they are new highways that will wind through newly developed communities and remaining open space, eventually to become freeways once bonds are paid off. The interest in toll roads is emerging at the very time that the quasi-public agencies created to oversee them are pushing to win speedy environmental clearance and get on with construction.

The history: Some political problems the roads are encountering can be traced to the fact that they were planned before the idea of tolls came in vogue here recently. In fact, they were approved at the county level in the 1970s as freeways, without much public comment, long before many of the people who will use them had moved here.

But although developer agreements required builders to pay part of the cost, the source of the rest of money to pay for these roads wasn’t resolved at first. That was a crucial loophole in the planning scheme of a county quite willing to approve colossal new development.

Toll roads became a solution to a problem, a way of bailing out a county that had already committed itself to the roads. That day of reckoning came in the late 1980s, when traffic congestion from all the new development had become so bad that local officials successfully advanced the toll road concept in Sacramento.

The conflicts: Because they were approved so long ago, tollway projects have come to where they are today without real scrutiny. While some communities raised objections and even filed lawsuits, there never has been the requisite local public debate. Residents in several communities now are being heard; 500 turned out in San Juan Capistrano last week, and Laguna Beach frets over a delicate canyon.

The projects also are running into concerns raised by regional and federal agencies. The Southern California Assn. of Governments is applying pressure to get car-pool lanes built. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has warned the Foothill Transportation Corridor that it must overhaul or abandon the project because of a threat to an endangered songbird.

The dilemma: The intrusion of new traffic on wildlife and new neighborhoods raises potent political problems late in the proceedings. Yet to date, the public’s voice has been limited largely to whatever suggestions may have been made by local elected officials who serve on the various Transportation Corridor agencies.

The legitimate concerns raised by those in and out of government who have an interest in how these toll roads are built should be addressed. How that debate is conducted will be important as well for the state and the region as well.

Surely, if the corridor agencies want to build the broad public consensus they need to proceed, they ought to have the political sense, if not the public-spirited commitment, to recognize the spadework yet to be done.

Accordingly, they should be quick to: 1) demonstrate that in 1991 the need for these new roads clearly outweighs the drawbacks; 2) willingly entertain local public comment, even at this late hour, and 3) comply fully with the environmental concerns raised by federal, state and regional agencies. This doesn’t seem too much to ask. And to do less might risk undermining a potentially helpful innovation.