Firms Join Race to Build Roads for the State : Privatization: Orange County companies figure prominently in an innovative state program in which they will build various transportation facilities. Tolls will pay the way.

Several Orange County companies are getting into the race to build private toll roads, bridges, tunnels or rail systems throughout California.

Three groups of companies--each group with an office in Orange County--were among 10 recently approved by the state to build private transportation facilities.

They are taking part in an innovative private transportation program in which the companies hope to recoup their costs and make a profit by charging motorists tolls. The 10 groups include 65 U.S. and foreign companies.

The biggest local company to qualify for the program is the construction concern Fluor Daniel Inc., which is based in Irvine. It is part of a group called California Transportation Ventures Inc. that includes a French company, a financial subsidiary of Prudential-Bache and a New York design firm.

Also approved was Enserch Corp., a Dallas energy and heavy construction company with an office in Santa Ana. Enserch has no partners.

And CRSS Commercial Group Inc., a Houston design, engineering and construction firm with an office in Irvine, is leading a third group called California Private Transportation Corp. that includes the New York bank Citicorp and other companies. They include a consulting firm headed by John Meyer, former head of Orange County’s Transportation Corridor Agencies, which is building the first three toll roads in California.

The groups won’t disclose what projects they’ll propose Aug. 1 to the state Department of Transportation, which is running the program. Four projects will be picked in the first phase.

State transportation officials tout toll roads as one solution to California’s traffic crunch, since the state is too strapped for cash to build all the free roads it needs. The private operation of what were once public services--called “privatization”--enjoyed a boom during the Reagan Administration with its strong support for free-market economics, although the trend is still not widespread.

Privatization is most common in municipal services, where cities contract with private companies to provide services, usually garbage collection. This will be the first major private transportation program in the nation, however, says Caltrans.

The legislature approved the program last year. Until then, private toll roads were forbidden by state law.

“No other state’s done anything like this,” said Carl Williams, Caltrans assistant director. “In a state that’s growing this fast, it’s been clear to us for some time that the political will to raise fuel taxes has fallen behind the need to raise them.

“So you have to seek capital any place you can.”

Williams estimates the groups may raise as much as $4 billion to build the private transportation projects.

None of the projects are likely to be mass transit, the groups say, although they’re keeping mum--for competitive reasons--on what they’ll propose.

“We might consider mass transit, but it’s not likely,” said Don Herz, regional manager for Enserch in Santa Ana.

Instead Enserch will concentrate on roads and tunnels, Herz said.

At California Private Transportation Corp., CRSS is leading a group that includes Citicorp to handle financing; Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff, a civil engineering firm specializing in toll roads; Granite Construction Co., a contractor on big civil projects; the John Meyer Co., consultants; Vollmer Associates, a consultant specializing in forecasting traffic volume; Woodward-Clyde Consultants, an environmental consultant; McDermott, Will & Emery, a law firm, and Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, an economics consulting firm.

Gerald S. Pfeffer, a senior vice president at CRSS, said while only four projects will be approved in this round, CRSS doesn’t expect some of the proposals to be serious.

He says “at least a couple of the groups”--which he declined to name--entered “just to see what kind of competition was going to emerge.

“They don’t have the same commitment some of the other groups do,” he said. “I’d be surprised if all (10) groups submit the kind of rigorous, detailed plans Caltrans is looking for.”

He declined to say what projects CRSS is contemplating, except that some are in Orange County.

At California Transportation Ventures Inc., the projects are likely to be toll roads. Fluor Daniel, the major operating unit of Fluor Corp., is leading a group that includes GIE Transroute, a group of French companies that manage private toll roads in France. Prudential-Bache will raise the money for the project and Parsons Brinckerhoff Development Group Inc., a New York design firm, will handle design.

Parsons is also helping design the three toll roads already approved for Orange County.

“My guess, looking at who’s involved in all these groups, is that most of the projects proposed to the state will be highways,” said Bruce E. Podwal, president of California Transportation Ventures.

In Orange County, there are several proposed roads that are languishing for lack of money. For instance, officials are pushing toll freeways that would alleviate traffic congestion between Orange and Riverside counties.

Caltrans says it will pick the winners before the end of the year.