Toll Roads to ‘Bridge’ Freeway Gridlock Favored in Vote by Assembly Committee

Urged to think of toll roads as “a bridge” over freeway gridlock, an Assembly committee approved legislation Wednesday that would open the door for the construction of California’s first public turnpikes.

The bill, by Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), was approved by the Assembly Transportation Committee on a bipartisan 8-4 vote and sent to the full Assembly, which has already approved similar legislation.

Seymour’s bill, approved by the Senate June 11, would allow two agencies formed by Orange County and 10 cities to build as many as three toll roads bypassing that county’s most congested traffic corridors.

The bill requires that tolls be used only after all other financing options are exhausted.

Under Seymour’s measure, the toll roads would be roughly parallel to existing freeways, though not necessarily nearby. Upon repayment of bonds sold to finance the roads, the tolls would be removed and the highways turned over to the state, Seymour said.

Current law allows only the state Transportation Department to build toll roads in California, and none have ever been constructed. The state operates 10 toll bridges, most of them spanning San Francisco Bay or nearby waterways.

The bill was approved after a sharp confrontation between Seymour and Bill Halloran, a lobbyist for the Automobile Club of Southern California, which opposes the bill.

Halloran said the auto club fears that allowing toll roads in Orange County would set a precedent that could lead to their construction throughout the state.

“You’re not really solving a highway problem,” Halloran said, adding that tolls would be “regressive in nature” and that fast-moving turnpikes built parallel to congested freeways would be elitist. “Right now this creates more problems than it solves.”

Seymour called Halloran’s reasoning “garbage” and insisted that his bill was narrowly drawn.

“We’re talking about a county that’s in gridlock, we’re talking about roads that run parallel to permit alternative use, we’re talking about a toll that is totally restricted to pay for construction only, and the automobile club has the audacity in representing its members . . . to oppose it? You’re a disgrace, sir.”