Consultant Predicts Enough Traffic to Pay for Toll Road

About 113,600 vehicles per day will pass through the main toll plaza on the planned San Joaquin Hills toll road in the year 2010, more than enough to pay for the long-awaited project, according to a consultant’s report released Thursday.

Wilbur Smith Associates, which used information from 400,000 questionnaires handed to drivers earlier this year at on-ramps and off-ramps throughout Orange County, concluded that all three toll roads planned for south Orange County will carry traffic volumes similar to urban freeways.

The traffic demand is so high for the San Joaquin project, the consultants said, that it is difficult to find an upper limit on the amount people are willing to pay to use it. However, they estimated the maximum at $2. The study recommends a $1 toll for vehicles traveling through the main toll plaza and lesser charges collected at on-ramps or off-ramps for short trips.

The report was released at board meetings of the two Orange County transportation corridor agencies, which are planning the three toll road projects.

“The news today is that the report shows that all three of the projects, with tolls, pencil out financially,” said Santa Ana Mayor Dan Young, chairman of the Eastern-Foothill project board.

The San Joaquin project will extend the Corona del Mar Freeway (Route 73) from MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach through Laguna Hills to Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano. The Eastern toll road will link the Riverside Freeway near the Riverside-Orange County border with Interstate 5 both near Jamboree Boulevard and at the junction with the Laguna Freeway (Route 133). The Foothill corridor will extend from the Eastern project through the foothills and Rancho Santa Margarita to Interstate 5 near San Clemente.

The highest traffic volume on the San Joaquin project, according to the Wilbur Smith study, will be 135,400 vehicles per day between El Toro Road near Laguna Canyon and Glenwood Drive in the planned community of Aliso Viejo.

The top volume for the Eastern project would be 93,400 vehicles per day in Peters Canyon near Chapman Avenue. And the Wilbur Smith study shows that a high of 75,600 vehicles per day would use a section of the Foothill toll road between Alton Parkway and Lake Forest Drive near the new community of Rancho Santa Margarita.

The three projects are expected to cost more than $1 billion combined.

Because some drivers will avoid paying tolls, the environmental impact reports for each project will be revised to reflect whether some vehicles will use nearby surface streets instead, a major concern of toll road opponents, officials said.

A report released by the county agencies planning the San Joaquin Hills toll road in south Orange County shows that the amount of traffic will vary significantly from one segment of the tollway to the next. The highest volume, 135,400 vehicles a day, is expected to occur between El Toro Road and Glenwood Drive. The segments measured are numbered below.