OCTC Acts Quickly on Chance to Build a Private Toll Road

Orange County--true to its reputation as an entrepreneurial frontier--would be the first Southern California site for a unique, profit-making tollway to be financed and built by private investors under a plan approved Monday by county transportation officials.

Rushing to take advantage of a new state law, the Orange County Transportation Commission voted 6 to 0 to have the agency’s staff find a private toll-road project that can be ready for presentation by Jan. 1.

“Getting there first with the mostest is important,” said OCTC Chairman Thomas F. Riley.

“We need to to go out and help put together a private financing proposal,” said commission member Dana W. Reed, a Costa Mesa lawyer who requested Monday’s vote. “Maybe it will be a consortium, if it’s too big for any one company to do alone.”

Under the new law, adopted recently in Sacramento and signed by the governor, there can be four privately built and operated toll roads, but Northern and Southern California must have at least one each.

Although the projects would be built with private money and operated for profit, they would be required to meet Caltrans’ design standards. After 35 years, ownership of the roads would be turned over to the state.

A statewide Caltrans panel will select the projects from among competing proposals. But Orange County is expected to have an advantage in the selection process because of intense interest in new highways here and because Keith McKean, director of Caltrans’ Orange County district office, will be a member of the state project-selection panel.

McKean, an ex-officio, non-voting member of the OCTC, predicted that the state panel will look favorably on Orange County’s proposals. Indeed, McKean agreed when Riley suggested during Monday’s OCTC meeting that the county should bid for two Southern California projects instead of one.

The private toll-road projects would differ markedly from the three tollways already being developed in eastern and southern Orange County. Those tollways--known as the Foothill, Eastern and San Joaquin Transportation Corridors--will be publicly owned and operated even though they are being financed with developer fees and revenue bonds.

Although no specific proposals for private tollways have been considered yet from business ranks, county officials said they most favor the $1.3-billion extension of the Orange Freeway along the Santa Ana River from the Garden Grove Freeway to either the San Diego Freeway or Pacific Coast Highway.

OCTC Executive Director Stanley T. Oftelie said Monday that although there is strong political support for the extension of the Orange Freeway, that project is already eligible for some federal funds as part of federal tollway legislation adopted two years ago. Oftelie said it may be better to pick a project that has no chance of getting any government funding.

Other possible routes include:

* Eastern Los Angeles County to Orange County through Tonner Canyon, north of Brea.

* Western San Bernardino County to Orange County through Soquel Canyon, north of Yorba Linda.

* The Temecula-Rancho California area of Riverside County to the planned Foothill tollway and Interstate 5 near San Clemente, through a “non-wilderness” section of the Cleveland National Forest and northern Camp Pendleton.

The advantage of the Tonner and Soquel canyon routes, Oftelie said, is that much of the land is owned by oil companies that are already financially capable of finding ways to finance a major highway project, and who in recent years have been seeking to diversify.

Meanwhile, two firms have been studying the possibility of completing the Orange Freeway as a private toll road.

Costa Mesa-based C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, which developed South Coast Plaza and adjacent areas, has held discussions with county officials about completing the Orange Freeway. Malcolm Ross, the firm’s director of planning and development, said he welcomed Monday’s vote: “It’s very good to get it (the concept) off the ground.”

Ross cautioned, however, that the Segerstrom firm does not expect to take the lead in putting together a specific proposal.

Pasadena-based Ralph M. Parsons Co., an engineering firm, probably will submit a bid for an upcoming OCTC consulting contract to be awarded soon on the proposed extension of the Orange Freeway, said Dennis Parker, Parsons’ manager of planning and development.

Parsons has been studying the Orange Freeway, the Temecula-San Clemente route and other toll-road projects on its own and with several landowners and a French toll-road company, Spie Batignolles.

Parker said that no formal presentation of the Temecula-San Clemente route has been made to government agencies, pending the results of a private ridership and revenue study now under way. That route has already generated some controversy among environmental groups and San Clemente residents.

Parker said that all of the toll-road projects his firm is interested in would involve either private donation of rights of way or acquisition by Caltrans prior to construction by private investors.

Officials of the Santa Monica-based Reason Foundation, a fiscally Libertarian-oriented think tank, have been meeting with county officials to promote the concept of private roads, specifically the privatization of the proposed Orange Freeway extension. However, county officials said, the foundation has not suggested any particular firm or consortium as a possible road builder and operator.

County officials say that the proposed Orange Freeway extension along the Santa Ana River is probably a front-runner for toll-road consideration because there was significant public support for extending the freeway in public workshops and surveys connected with OCTC’s 20-year, $11.6-billion traffic improvement and growth management plan. The freeway extension was not included in the 20-year plan because of its hefty $1.3-billion price tag.

Instead, the 20-year plan focuses on completing the massive $1.5-billion effort to double the width of the Santa Ana Freeway. Proposed Private Tollway Routes The Orange County Transportation Commission is seeking proposals for privately financed and constructed toll roads to be built in Orange County. The commission hopes to take advantage of a new state law that approves the construction of as many as four private tollways in California. The grey areas on the map below show thre of the routes under consideration. Source: Orange County Transportation Commission