Senate Panel Calls Halt to Toll Road Bill

A measure that would have allowed the state’s first public turnpikes to be built in Orange County came to a screeching halt Tuesday after moving further than any previous legislation for state toll roads.

The bill by Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) died for lack of a motion in the Senate Transportation Committee after senators denounced toll roads as “an enormous departure” from traditional road-financing policies in California.

The action culminated months of feuding between Frizzelle and Orange County officials, who said they endorse toll roads as a funding alternative for long-stalled expressway projects but not under the terms proposed by Frizzelle.

Objects to Conditions

During the hearing Dennis Carpenter, the county’s Sacramento lobbyist, outlined the opposition of the Orange County Transportation Commission and the Board of Supervisors to Frizzelle’s bill.

Carpenter focused on one provision that would limit the number of routes that could use tolls and another that would rebate some of the increased property taxes that Frizzelle has contended would be paid by homeowners living near newly constructed freeways.

Some committee members, noting that California has never had a public toll road, seemed reluctant to set “the precedent.”

Others, like Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Carmichael), said new funding mechanisms for roads are needed statewide, not just in Orange County.

“I’m just not ready for your bill,” he told Frizzelle. “I want to know more about the impact on the total system.”

Frizzelle, who introduced his bill in February, 1985, without consulting local officials, said the county’s opposition to his proposal was disappointing but not surprising.

Made Changes in Bill

He said he had made a number of changes in recent months to win support. However, he said that county officials want restriction-free legislation allowing them to build toll roads and that he opposes such a measure.

County officials have said they may try to get Frizzelle or another legislator to introduce a more acceptable toll road bill next year.

But Frizzelle said that after the defeat of his measure Tuesday he will actively oppose any county-sponsored measure that does not include the restrictions which local officials found so objectionable in his bill.

Frizzelle’s measure passed the Assembly last June on a 48-30 vote, marking the first time either house of the Legislature had approved a measure allowing construction of toll roads. But the measure has since been stalled in the Senate committee.