Capitol Bargaining on Highways Favors O.C. Toll Road Plan

Allowing private companies to build and finance toll roads in California has become a new option in legislative negotiations over a 10-year plan for easing congestion in the state’s highway system, possibly including two tollway projects aimed at relieving congestion on two Orange County freeways.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) said that, as a concession to Republicans, Democratic negotiators are considering offering their support for a measure by Assemblyman William P. Baker (R-Danville) which would permit private groups to build and operate transportation projects.

“It’s something we’re looking at and it’s a serious consideration,” he said.

Orange County officials said Wednesday that Baker’s proposal is linked, in part, to recent interest among authorities in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties who have been promoting two potential toll road projects to relieve the severely congested Orange and Riverside freeways.

Those same Orange County officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum and a San Bernardino County official have been trying to garner private support for toll roads into Orange County. They said Schabarum favors a route through Tonner Canyon, while San Bernardino County prefers Soquel Canyon. Both are in Chino Hills north of Brea.

Schabarum could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Katz said the toll road proposal would be part of an overall agreement that is being hammered out by legislative leaders and Gov. George Deukmejian on a plan to finance $20 billion in transportation improvements over the next decade. The plan includes proposals for a gasoline tax increase and a hike in truck weight fees.

Until now, private construction and operation of toll roads as part of the state highway system has been prohibited by California law. In 1987, the Legislature authorized three toll road projects in Orange County but specified that two newly created local government agencies would oversee both the construction and financing.

Baker said his proposal would allow the California Department of Transportation to enter agreements with private business to construct and lease transportation facilities which could include everything from bridges to roads and urban interchanges to elevated traffic lanes.

“We’ve left it open,” he said. “I don’t have a specific project in mind.”

The legislation would be limited to authorizing only three projects--one each in Northern and Southern California and a third in an area yet to be specified.

Whatever the project, Baker said it would have to be built to state specifications and with specific approval by Caltrans because “we wouldn’t just want a road to nowhere.”

Private companies entering agreements with the state, he said, would be permitted to impose tolls on the new facilities to pay for construction and provide them with a “reasonable” profit.

Although he anticipated that tolls would be the most popular method of paying for the projects, he said the companies could propose other financing schemes. The private companies would operate the facilities for 35 years, at which point they would revert to the state, he said.

Baker said private involvement is needed in state transportation projects because there is not enough public money to pay for all the projects needed.

Such a plan for toll roads in northern Orange County would provide badly needed “relief valves” in an area where the borders of the three counties meet, an area for which little or no state highway money is available to build new highways, Orange County officials said.

However, they said that they have not been asked yet to support either the Tonner or Soquel Canyon projects, nor have they been approached by Orange County businesses interested in funding or building either link.

The Orange County Transportation Commission already is studying the feasibility of building a proposed extension of the Orange Freeway as a toll road. But the study is not aimed specifically at the possibility of building the project with private funds.

The freeway currently ends at the Garden Grove Freeway near Anaheim Stadium and would be extended along the Santa Ana River to the San Diego Freeway in Fountain Valley, at a cost exceeding $1 billion. No money is expected to be available for the project from the state or federal government, because such sources already have been tapped for other traffic improvements, including the massive Santa Ana Freeway widening project.

Orange County officials said that although the Orange Freeway extension has not come up in discussions with Los Angeles and San Bernardino County officials, and is in no way connected with Wednesday’s legislative developments, some talks have been held with Orange County developer Henry T. Segerstrom and the Reason Foundation, a Libertarian think tank in Santa Monica, about building the extension as a toll road.

Stanley T. Oftelie, executive director of the county transportation commission, said Wednesday that he welcomes the Assembly proposal, although he added that he has not discussed it with anyone.

“We have no resistance to private toll roads,” he said. “We need every kind of innovative funding technique we can get in this county. We should carefully look at the (Orange Freeway) extension and a new connection to San Bernardino County or Los Angeles County.”

Walt Hagen, chief deputy director of Caltrans District 12, which encompasses Orange County, added, “There are some areas where private financing may be the only way to build new highways. The location of those (proposed) routes--Tonner Canyon and Soquel Canyon--are in places where there is a great need but no money to do anything like that.”

Meanwhile, Baker’s legislative proposal has the strong backing of the Deukmejian Administration through Robert K. Best, director of Caltrans, who has argued that it would “give us the flexibility to supplement governmental funds with the resources and talent of private industry to bring additional projects in line.”

Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said that while he has consistently supported the “use of toll roads in theory,” the plan may face strong opposition from some Democrats in the Senate.