Grading the San Joaquin Toll Road

If anyone happened to be wondering whether the Orange County Transportation Commission (OCTC) is misnamed, all one had to do was pick up a copy of its good-looking, slick, May newsletter, “Newsline.”

A better name for the commission might be Orange County Development Commission. True, the paper does report quite a bit of its traffic goings-on. But look here:

Commenting, alarmingly (to me), on the start-nowhere, go-nowhere San Joaquin toll road, it said: “Some portions of the route (San Joaquin Transportation Corridor) have been graded in conjunction with adjacent development.” (Mild way to put it, right?).

Now it appears the developer with its handmaiden politician backers is out of the closet. Pretending is no longer necessary. The mask is off. Grading has begun.

The environmentally destructive road, long heralded by its promoters as a traffic reliever, has been allowed to state its true self: access to projected housing tracts.

And you want to know who’s going to win honors for it? Watch for the OCTC’s award ceremony June 9 and who gets named for “their outstanding contributions to traffic improvement.”

Would you be surprised to see such worthies as the developer-backer, Harriett M. Wieder, and the Irvine Co. and Mission Viejo people? Well don’t be.

TOM ALEXANDER

Laguna Beach