Deukmejian Signs Bill for Toll Roads in Orange County

Toll roads--a symbol of the eastern United States long spurned by independent and car-conscious Californians--could be operating in Orange County by the 1990s under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. George Deukmejian.

The governor, facing a deadline to sign or veto 150 bills awaiting action on his desk, also signed a measure providing a $110-million bail-out for California counties.

He also vetoed a bill that would have allowed parents to prepay their children’s future college tuition costs at today’s prices.

The toll road measure, by Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), will allow two agencies in traffic-choked Orange County to build the state’s first public turnpikes, with construction on the first road expected to begin as soon as 1990 and be completed by 1993.

While the toll roads themselves must stop at the Orange County boundary, their impact is likely to be felt over a much broader area as drivers from throughout the highly mobile Southern California region go to Orange County to work or play or simply pass through on their way to someplace else.

“The people who work in Orange County but live in the Inland Empire or Los Angeles County will be helping Orange County pay to solve our problem,” Seymour said. “This will not be a panacea, but it will go a long way toward changing our highways and freeways from parking lots back into modes of transportation.”

Already, planners have mapped a 15-mile route from Irvine to San Juan Capistrano through the hills west of the San Diego Freeway as the prime candidate for the first toll road. That route is considered the most likely to qualify for 35% federal funding as a toll road pilot project under a bill passed by Congress this year.

Other possible routes include a 17-mile stretch from the Riverside Freeway in Yorba Linda to Interstate 5 in Irvine, known as the “eastern corridor,” and a 32-mile road connecting the eastern corridor to I-5 in San Clemente.

A final decision on routing priority is expected Oct. 12 from the Transportation Corridor Agencies, a consortium of officials from several Orange County cities and the county, which will build and operate the roads. The tolls, expected to be less than $1, would have to be lifted once bonds sold to finance the roads were repaid.

Despite the state’s long tradition of freeways financed by the gasoline tax, relatively little opposition to toll roads surfaced as the idea worked its way through the Legislature this year. There was some name-calling--the roads were described as “un-Califiornian” and a “U-turn to yesterday”--but Seymour’s bill won relatively easy passage in the Senate and Assembly.

The only major private opposition came from the Automobile Club of Southern California, which complained that toll roads built under local authority would create a “patchwork quilt” of highways in California.

“Toll roads are really just a stop-gap measure, and a bad one at that,” said Bill Halloran, an auto club lobbyist in Sacramento. “We’re hoping that this is not an indication of things to come, that it’s for Orange County only.”

But there are signs that other Southern California communities may soon be seeking similar authority. A committee of San Fernando Valley elected officials on Monday endorsed the idea of building toll roads as upper decks above portions of the Ventura, Hollywood and Santa Ana freeways.

Aid for Counties

Among the other legislation Deukmejian signed Tuesday was a bill to provide one-time grants of $110 million to California counties, including $30 million for Los Angeles, $6 million for Orange and $6 million for San Diego. Counties will be free to spend that money however they like.

Deukmejian has suggested that Los Angeles County use some of the money to shore up its faltering network of trauma centers, but county officials said they were counting on the $30 million for other programs. A separate bill providing more money specifically for trauma care is awaiting action by the governor.

Under the prepaid tuition measure, parents would have paid today’s tuition prices, by installments if they wished, and the state would have invested parents’ money in stocks, bonds and other financial securities. Then, when a child graduated from high school, he or she would have been guaranteed a four-year college education, provided the child met all other entrance requirements.