Transit tax is praised in O.C.

Orange County transportation planners are closing a chapter on a spending plan that will have generated more than $4 billion in freeway and road improvements by the time it expires in 2011.

On Monday, the Orange County Transportation Authority agreed to spend $41 million on a variety of freeway and road fixes, the final chunk of cash tied to Measure M -- the half-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax approved by voters 17 years ago.

The tax money has been used primarily to unclog the county’s transportation system by improving roads, widening freeways and helping introduce Metrolink rail service.

Although voters overwhelmingly approved renewing the sales tax measure last November, county leaders treated the moment Monday as a destination reached.

“This is an outstanding milestone because residents have been able to see how their tax money was put to use,” said Lucy Dunn, Orange County Business Council chief executive.

With the tax money, residents helped pay for billions of dollars in transportation infrastructure at a time when state funding for road and freeway improvements was dwindling, OCTA Chairwoman Carolyn Cavecche said.

“Orange County residents can feel proud, because we knew from Day One that we needed to invest in transportation,” she said.

Without the tax, the county would have been unable to afford new bridges and interchanges while keeping pace with growth, transit experts said.

“In many ways, the county would look much different if we didn’t have Measure M,” said Gary E. Johnson, Anaheim’s former public works director who retired this year. “Measure M was vital to our ability to keep up with growth as well as maintaining our local street system.”

During the time that Measure M has been in effect, O.C. also built a toll road network that provides alternatives -- albeit costly ones -- to the freeways that lace the county. The toll roads are funded through bonds, not by Measure M.

While Orange County has primarily used its sales tax revenue to pay for freeway widenings and road improvements, Los Angeles County has sunk most of its transportation dollars into mass transit. Orange County shelved a transit project that would have created light-rail service through the heart of the county.

The varying two approaches have created bottlenecks between the neighboring counties where freeways suddenly narrow.

By the time the original Measure M goes off the books in 2011, it will have provided nearly $4.2 billion worth of transportation improvements in Orange County.

The projects have added jobs and reinvigorated the county’s engineering industry, experts said.

“A lot of companies in Orange County benefited from Measure M,” said Maureen “Mo” Hayes, vice president for business development at Parsons, a worldwide engineering and construction firm. “We were able to grow an engineering industry here, and it really helped spawn the county’s transportation expertise.”

Hundreds of local projects that affect residents, such as street widening, signal coordination, intersection renovation and Metrolink station construction, have been made possible through each city’s share from the sales tax, OCTA officials said.

Voters’ renewal of the tax last year is expected to generate $12 billion for transportation projects from 2011 through 2041.

Unlike the original measure, the new Measure M has specific assurances for project funding and a provision that prohibits a renewal of CenterLine, the controversial rail project through central Orange County that died after $60 million in planning, said Hamid Bahadori, Automobile Club of Southern California public policy and programs director.

Overall, the measure and transportation projects funded by the tax were successful, Bahadori said. He noted, however, that oversight for cities, which got money for pavement improvements and signal synchronization, was lax.

Under the new measure, cities must report on their road pavement conditions and support a signal synchronization program before they get new funding, he said.

Also, the plan now contains specific assurances that proposed widening of the San Diego and Costa Mesa freeways will adhere to earlier promises to limit the effect on communities along the route.

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david.reyes@latimes.com