Local Answers Urged on County’s Traffic : Symposium Speakers Warn Against Waiting for State or Federal Help

Although implored by Rep. Robert Badham (R-Newport Beach) to stress the positive, most speakers at an all-day traffic symposium Monday in Costa Mesa dwelt on the negative.

Gridlock is a problem that won’t soon go away, many speakers said, citing the county’s anticipated continued population growth, a slower pace of economic expansion, the limited ability of government to help out and taxpayer reluctance to fund more roads.

Some of the discussion also centered on a slow-growth initiative proposed for the June, 1988, ballot.

Badham urged the symposium’s 200 participants to keep their chins up and start looking to the future rather then lamenting the present.

“We can’t waste any more time talking about what’s bad,” he said. “It’s high time we look to the future.”

Blood From a Turnip

That future must be dominated by increased cooperation between local governments and the private sector, conference speakers stressed time and again.

Relying on state and federal monies to deliver stranded Orange County motorists from gridlock will be like squeezing blood from a turnip, they said.

Federal revenue sharing ends this year, it was noted. There is $10 billion in the federal highways trust fund, but the Department of Transportation has already promised $30 billion nationally, according to Janet Hale, assistant DOT secretary for budget and programs.

California needs nearly $25 billion for its federal and local highways, Badham said. Gas taxes raise $16 billion to $17 billion a year, leaving a shortfall of $8 billion to $9 billion.

“The cavalry is not going to come,” warned Ron Cole, an Orange County Transportation Commission senior manager.

But Carolyn Ewing, deputy director of the state Department of Transportation, qualified that. The cavalry--meaning the state government in Sacramento--may be on the way, but it expects the settlers to provide their “own horses and ammunition.” Local jurisdictions will have to raise their own money to fund road projects.

Fund-raising suggestions centered on developer fees, already instituted for Orange County’s proposed San Joaquin Hills and Foothill/Eastern transportation corridors, user taxes that would be levied according to vehicle size and use and possible toll roads.

Frederick Cannon, a senior economist for Bank of America, told the meeting that overbuilding in the county has left a two-to-three-year lag in filling office space. This has slowed the pace of construction and, in effect, made it harder for local governments to raise money for transportation, he said.

As economic growth slows, Orange County’s own baby boom goes on, said Ernie Schneider, director of the Orange County Environmental Management Agency. In the last 17 years, the county’s population has gone from 1.4 million to 2.2 million, growing by 40,000 a year.

Since 1981, most of that growth has been from births, not migration. Today, he said, half the population is under 30; one-third of those teen-agers or younger.

As property prices rise, those young people will have to move from the county, especially if a proposed slow-growth initiative is approved, Schneider argued. But because the jobs are here, they will instead be commuting in and out daily, only worsening the traffic problem. Shutting down the building industry would also shut down city revenue sources.

Make Kids Move Out

“We’re caught in a dilemma,” Badham said. “On the one hand, we can pull the ladder up on the board, Jack, and nobody new can come in. On the other hand (resulting higher prices) would make our kids move out.”

Glenn Heimstra, a private planning consultant, suggested gathering all the mayors, local government agencies and major businesses of Orange County around one table to bring to light revenue sources hidden by non-cooperation. The plan, he said, is working in King County around Seattle.

Badham said he intends to compile the comments of Monday’s symposium and take them to local governments and the community.