A surprise detour for Orange County toll road

It’s almost impossible to avoid cliched driving metaphors to describe what happens repeatedly to the proposal to build a toll highway in southeastern Orange County — and happened again Wednesday evening. The plans for the shorter and renamed Foothill South extension hit another roadblock. A red light. They were slowed, or possibly ground to a halt. In any case, the San Diego Regional Quality Control Board delivered an unexpected “no” to a project that was just a fraction of the Transportation Corridor Agencies’ original plan to build 16 miles of turnpike from eastern Orange County through San Onofre State Beach in northern San Diego County. It would have bisected the length of the narrow park, which encompasses backcountry as well as beach, cutting between the popular San Mateo Creek campground and a small hill that is the primary home of the endangered pocket mouse.

That idea was rejected by the California Coastal Commission in early 2008; the toll road agency appealed to the federal government on the very questionable grounds that the road served an overriding national interest. That was rightly rejected as well. (An interesting side story here: The toll road agency claimed the road was needed in case there was a nuclear accident at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station — which now is closed for good.)

The agency says it wants to build a 5.5-mile toll road, two miles in each direction with room in the median for later expansion, called the Tesoro Extension, which would not cross into the state park. In a previous interview, a spokesman said the road was important for the planned Rancho Mission Viejo development, near Cleveland National Forest. The reaction of a transportation planner for the development, whom I interviewed some months ago, was in essence, “Don’t bother on our account.” The road wasn’t necessary to development; in fact, the developer had been required to devise a planned community that did not require the new highway. So the Tesoro would be something of a road to nowhere, It wouldn’t connect to another major arterial, as originally planned, or to an employment hub. It would probably relieve some congestion from a major, nearby surface road, but that’s a dubious reason to pave a big new highway through wetlands and habitat for endangered species.

I started the previous paragraph with words “the agency says” because a lot of people don’t believe it. Not the state of California, which has sued to stop the shorter road, or the majority of the water board that rejected it this week.

They contend that the agency obviously still plans to build the full road and is engaging in prohibited “segmenting” of a larger project that prevents the public and the government from considering the full environmental impact. According to KPBS, one water board member said it was like voting on one-third of a bridge.

Meanwhile, the toll road agency recently voted to go ahead with a refinancing plan that, if the state approves, would allow the agency to continue collecting tolls for 13 years past the date when they should expire. It’s not clear why the state should agree to this, or whether the agency will appeal the water board decision or try to find another way to build its project. I have a call in to them. But it sounds like a good idea at this point to abandon the Foothill South in whole or in part.

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