Coronado Bridge May Still Take Toll After Debt Is Paid

Residents, tourists and engineering professionals have long admired the Coronado Bridge’s majestic arch over San Diego Bay and the grace with which the soaring structure swoops back down onto Coronado peninsula.

Now, however, the 11,000-foot bridge, once cited as the nation’s most beautiful by the American Institute of Steel Construction, is being viewed as a marvel for reasons other than its appearance.

State officials estimate that some time around July, 1986, a westbound motorist will drive up to the toll plaza, hand over $1.20 and, in so doing, make the final installment on the bridge’s $50-million construction bill--17 years ahead of schedule.

Unless the Legislature and Gov. George Deukmejian act before then, the state’s highest bridge toll will suddenly plummet to zero.

But there appears to be little or no sentiment among San Diego County authorities for eliminating the toll. Several do favor other schemes, however, such as lowering the toll or exempting car pools with three or more riders.

At a time when transportation dollars are becoming increasingly scarce, some see those toll revenues--$7.46 million, not counting interest earnings, in the last fiscal year--as the logical funding source for a long wish list. Local officials cite road improvements, a new ferry crossing, the area’s ambitious rail-transit plans or projects to alleviate traffic problems in Coronado, which Mayor R. H. Dorman says has seen no benefits but has borne “all the impacts” since the bridge opened in 1969.

San Diego County legislators in Sacramento have introduced three separate bills this month authorizing the continued collection of tolls after the bridge’s bond debt is retired.

One, by Sen. Jim Ellis (R-San Diego), would let the toll pay for a tunnel or other major improvements to the bridge approach in Coronado. Another, by Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), would allow toll revenues to maintain the bridge and finance San Diego County regional transportation projects. Still another, by Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas), would simply allow state transportation officials to continue collecting a toll, without specifying how the money should be spent.

Mojonnier’s aide, Chris Heiserman, said hers is a “spot bill,” which can be amended after a special task force created by the Legislature makes recommendations later this year.

But Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) said he opposes all three measures. Stirling wants the toll eliminated after a permanent maintenance fund has been established.

“I think the only justification for continuing that toll is to maintain and operate that bridge,” adds Stirling, who concedes his is the minority point of view among the county’s elected officials. “Other than that, I think you are breaking faith with the public.”

For state transportation officials, the 16-year-old bridge is an unmatched financial success story.

Other California toll bridges have paid off their initial construction debt, only to see tolls continued and revenues reappropriated to pay for needed remodeling, major transportation projects in the immediate vicinity, or construction costs for other bridges in their region.

But never before has one of the nine state-owned-and-operated toll bridges paid off its construction bill with so much time or money to spare, said Gerald Meis, the state Department of Transportation’s (Caltrans) toll bridge chief.

If the Coronado Bridge toll was continued at its present rate for another 20 years, the revenues would generate a surplus of $119.6 million, according to a Caltrans financial projection released last August.

Even if the bridge’s maintenance costs--now paid out of the separate State Highway Account--were shifted over to the toll revenue fund, the surplus would exceed $100 million over the same period, the Caltrans projection shows.

Caltrans officials say they can conceive of nothing in their long-range future plans that would necessitate spending all that money on the bridge alone.

And the $47.6 million in revenue bonds issued for the bridge in 1967 wasn’t even scheduled to be retired until 2003.

A combination of growth, cautious traffic projections and a maintenance funding arrangement undertaken to appease a skeptical bond market are credited for the bonds’ early retirement.

Assemblywoman Mojonnier authored legislation last year that created a task force to make recommendations on whether the bridge toll should be continued after the bonds are paid off, how much it should be and how the revenues should be spent.

That task force, which includes representatives of Caltrans, the Navy, the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, the San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag) and the cities of San Diego and Coronado, has been meeting since the beginning of the year and is supposed to report to the Legislature by July 1.

Task force members say it is too early to tell whether or not the group will reach a consensus.

Whatever it does, the ultimate decision will be made by the Legislature and governor, observed county Supervisor George Bailey, Sandag’s representative.

Coronado Mayor Dorman has been the most outspoken advocate on the task force. While several on the task force say they are studying options and keeping an open mind, Dorman said his city’s traffic problems have to be the top priority.

The bridge was “jammed down our throats,” said Dorman, noting residents opposed construction when it was begun in 1967 to replace the ferry service that had been part of Coronado life for nearly 80 years.

In hindsight, Dorman said, it appears that residents of tiny Coronado, which has a current population of about 20,000, made a mistake by not working more closely with neighboring giant San Diego. But now, said Dorman, fairness dictates that alleviation of traffic that has been “dumped on our local city streets” for 16 years should be everybody’s top concern.

“My position is that the bridge created the problem,” said Dorman, who favors a one-mile tunnel from the foot of the bridge to the North Island (Naval) Air Station.

“Normally, when you look at bridges like this one, it connects one piece of highway with another piece of highway,” Dorman said.

Dorman wants Caltrans to begin a feasibility study of a tunnel, which he said would cost about $50 million, even before the task force makes its report. But that position has little support among other task force members--not even from the Navy’s representative.

“Right now, I’m just an interested observer,” said Navy Capt. Jan Cook. “I’m there to make sure that the Navy and DOD (the Department of Defense) doesn’t get stuck in the ear.”

While San Diego officials acknowledge that Coronado has a valid complaint, some say bridge maintenance, extensions of the trolley and road improvements on the San Diego side should have just as high a priority.

“We have a lot of problems in San Diego, and a lot of them are in that general area (near the bridge),” said Dave Nielsen, a mayor’s office policy assistant who has represented Mayor Roger Hedgecock on the task force.

City Councilman Dick Murphy, who acknowledges that he feels slighted and “a little disappointed” that Hedgecock--not he--was chosen as the city’s representative on the task force, has a simple formula for toll revenues.

First, said Murphy, the toll should be lowered by 20 cents because the 45,000 daily commuters who have been paying it “deserve some break.”

After that, Murphy said, bridge maintenance costs should be “subtracted off the top.” Then, he said, remaining revenues should be split, with half going to Coronado and a fourth each to the City of San Diego and the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, of which he is chairman.

Caltrans’ Meis said the department is neutral except for its position that toll revenues ought to pay the bridge’s maintenance or operational costs.

But according to some local officials, others in Caltrans have expressed reservations about using toll revenues for regional transportation projects like a trolley extension, fearing it would set a new policy precedent that might affect the eight other state-owned toll bridges.

Although toll revenues are helping to pay for a subway tunnel for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system under San Francisco Bay, Caltrans has rationalized that the project was bridge-related, since the subway tunnel parallels the Bay Bridge.

The planned 18-mile eastern leg of San Diego’s trolley system doesn’t fit that rationalization.

The same state officials do not view a new ferry crossing in the North Island area, which some San Diego County officials are proposing, as fitting the precedent either. That is more akin, they say, to the arrangement involving six toll bridges in the Bay Area in which there are two common revenue pools, each encompassing three bridges.

Not all state officials see the trolley as substantially different from BART’s so-called Trans-Bay Tube.

“To me, the precedent has been established,” said Bruce Nestande, chairman of the state Transportation Commission and an Orange County supervisor. “It is a very small step to go further.

“Now, I’m not saying I would support that,” added Nestande, a frequent critic of rail transit projects.

Nestande said the Transportation Commission, which sets toll rates, will have no position on the Coronado bridge until the task force makes its report.

Meanwhile, until a bill clears the Legislature and gets the governor’s signature--or until the bridge debt is paid off--San Diego County residents can expect a lot of rhetoric, and probably more political maneuvering.