Countywide : Backers of Gas Tax Hike List Benefits

Trying to win over a populace that routinely rejects tax hikes, proponents of a 9-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase promised Wednesday that the revenue would be used to relieve congestion on Orange County’s clogged freeways and surface streets. At a news conference in Santa Ana, supporters of Propositions 108 and 111 unfurled a list of local highway and road improvements that could be made if both propositions are approved by California voters June 5. Jerry Premo, chairman of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce Transportation Council, and Patricia Harrigan, president of the League of Women Voters of Orange County, said passage of the companion measures is needed to complete approved but unfunded projects and to make freeways and bridges earthquake-safe. Orange County traffic is growing by about 20% annually, leaving the state without adequate funds to ensure completion of road projects important to the county, Premo said. Proposition 111 would add 5 cents per gallon to the state gas tax as of Aug. 1 and tack on another penny each year until 1995. It would also impose a 55% increase in truck-weight fees and modify state spending limits to allow more spending for highway projects. Its companion measure, Proposition 108, calls for a $1-billion bond issue for rapid transit. Proponents say the two would generate $18.5 billion for transportation improvements statewide in the next 10 years. On the list of Orange County projects supporters say would “definitely” be completed if the two propositions passed: widening Pacific Coast Highway to six lanes between Brookhurst Street and Beach Boulevard, reconstructing the interchange of the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways, widening the Santa Ana Freeway from the Costa Mesa Freeway to the Garden Grove Freeway and rebuilding that interchange, and constructing an interchange between the Santa Ana and Corona del Mar freeways. Transportation officials also hope to use the money to add four lanes to the Santa Ana Freeway and rebuild the interchange from the Garden Grove and Orange freeways to the Riverside Freeway, add sound walls and bus and car-pool lanes to the Orange Freeway from the Santa Ana Freeway to the Los Angeles County line, and widen the Riverside Freeway from the Orange Freeway in Fullerton to the Riverside County line.

Proposition 111 supporters said its passage will bring $14.6 million to Orange County municipalities for street repair and maintenance.