CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / BALLOT MEASURES : Phantom Freeway Has More Than a Ghost of a Chance

For more than 30 years a phantom freeway--California 30--has appeared on maps and plans in San Bernardino County, but not until now has it seemed a real possibility.

Passage of a sales tax increase by San Bernardino County voters has made construction of the new, 28-mile freeway all but a certainty, but transportation officials say one more thing is needed--approval on June 5 of Proposition 111, which, besides doubling the state gasoline tax over five years, would increase truck weight fees and lift the state spending limit.

The Proposition 111 money would pay for the portion of the freeway in San Bernardino County that is not covered by the new sales tax revenue. It also would make construction of the five miles in Los Angeles County--which would connect with Interstate 210--much more likely.

Two generations of planners and politicians have labored on behalf of this new road, which would run between La Verne, in eastern Los Angeles County, and the city of San Bernardino. But the planning has never turned to asphalt.

Other projects took precedence, or transportation pooh-bahs were skeptical of the need for the freeway, or the state ran out of money. Whatever the reason, California 30--often called the Foothill Freeway, like its other half, Interstate 210--had remained a gleam in the eye of half a dozen or so die-hard supporters.

But last November, San Bernardino County voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase for highway and other transportation improvements. This is expected to generate almost $1.7 billion over the next 20 years, of which $450 million has been earmarked for California 30.

“That brought it into the realm of the real,” San Bernardino County Supervisor Jon D. Mikels said.

But officials in both Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties say Proposition 111 also is needed.

For one thing, the new San Bernardino County sales tax revenue would pay for only 70% of the new road, and some combination of federal, state and private financing is needed for the rest. For another, Los Angeles County has no sales tax increase for highway projects, so money from Proposition 111 is crucial to complete the five-mile, $150-million portion of the freeway that is in Los Angeles County.

Supporters say the new highway is needed because of the rapid growth of San Bernardino County. Population leaped from 900,000 in 1980 to 1.4 million today, and the Southern California Assn. of Governments estimates that 2.2 million people will live in the county by 2010.

Traffic congestion on Interstate 10--the main east-west connection between the two counties--has grown so bad that the California Department of Transportation rates the freeway “F2,” which means there are two to three hours of stop-and-go traffic daily.

Developer Joseph DiIorio told a recent meeting of California 30 boosters that serious truck accidents had closed Interstate 10 for an hour or more on three occasions recently.

He said United Parcel Service, which bases its airplane fleet at Ontario International Airport, is planning to move some operations elsewhere and warned that other businesses would leave the area if traffic congestion is not eased.

Conditions are little better on California 60--the Pomona Freeway--a few miles south of Interstate 10 and on major east-west arterial streets like Foothill Boulevard, Highland Avenue and Base Line Road.

“We’re not talking about some ‘nice to have’ frill here,” said Mayor John Longville of Rialto, a city of about 65,000 people 10 miles west of San Bernardino. “We need this freeway to fulfill basic needs, so people can get to work.”

There are documents indicating that planning for the freeway began in the late 1940s--”back to antiquity,” as Supervisor Mikels put it. Someone else dubbed it the “unicorn of California freeways--a mythical beast that nobody thought really existed.”

In those early days, when eastern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County were filled with vineyards and citrus ranches, there did not appear to be an urgent need for the new road.

By the 1970s the need was more apparent, but California 30 supporters charge that Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and his Caltrans director, Adriana Gianturco, sabotaged the freeway as part of an overall campaign to reduce spending on new roads in favor of mass transit projects.

Gianturco denies that was the motive. She said the proposed freeway was dropped because it was not cost-effective. “When we looked at the Route 30 proposal, we thought there were cheaper and better ways to handle the problem,” she said. “There might not be now, but there were then.”

State 30 languished for many years, though the San Bernardino Associated Governments and local city officials tried to preserve needed rights-of-way and also kept the California 30 political pot stirring.

But these were lean years, when few believed the road ever would be built.

“I wasn’t sure I’d see it in my lifetime,” said Tony Malone, executive vice president of the Upland Chamber of Commerce and a California 30 booster for 25 years.

All this changed with the passage of Measure I--the 1/2-cent sales tax increase--by San Bernardino County voters last November. The new tax started April 1 and at least $50 million will be collected in the first year.

If Proposition 111 passes, or if the state comes up with some other revenue source, construction on the long-awaited freeway could begin within three years and might be finished by the end of the decade.

So far, there has been little opposition. The city of Claremont, near the western end of the route, opposed it for years but has changed its position, in hopes that the new freeway will absorb some of the traffic that now thunders along Foothill Boulevard, through the quiet college community.

Environmental groups are, at best, lukewarm about the project but have not opposed it vigorously.

“The Sierra Club is not pro-freeway of any kind, anywhere,” said Anne Dennis, conservation coordinator for the Riverside-San Bernardino chapter. “All they do is induce more growth and produce more congestion and pollution.” But the club endorsed Measure I, the county sales tax increase.

Even without strong opposition, however, California 30 faces problems before the first car wheels up an on-ramp.

Much right-of-way still must be acquired, including a stretch where the city of La Verne allowed at least 125 expensive homes to be built while other cities were protecting the route.

The Federal Highway Administration wants to designate much of the route “suburban,” instead of “urban,” which means interchanges can be built only every other mile, not every mile, as most local plans call for. This issue must be resolved before California 30 receives final environmental approval.

The statewide campaign to pass Proposition 111--the gas tax increase--also poses a problem for San Bernardino County supporters of California 30.

Proponents of 111 are marching up and down the state, telling voters they must approve the proposition to make sure projects like California 30 are completed. But just last fall, San Bernardino County voters were told they could ensure construction of the new freeway by increasing the sales tax.

“We simply were not going to go out and tell people we needed the gas tax to make good on our commitments,” said developer DiIorio, a leader in both the Measure I and Proposition 111 campaigns. “In so many words, they (strategists for the gas tax campaign) were told to keep out of town.”

The trouble is, money from both taxes--the sales tax and the gas tax--appear necessary if California 30 is to become a reality.

San Bernardino County needs revenue from the gas tax and truck fee increases that are provided by Proposition 111 to make up the 30% of total funding that will not come from the county sales tax increase.

Los Angeles County, with no new sales tax revenue, needs Proposition 111 funds even to consider building its five miles of California 30. Even if the gas tax increase is approved, there is no certainty that Los Angeles will choose to spend the money on California 30 and not on some of its other desperate transportation needs.

But avid supporters of this long-delayed, almost mythical freeway are convinced that at last it will become a reality.

“Route 30 will be built, with or without passage of Proposition 111,” said Supervisor Mikels of San Bernardino County. “I don’t know how we’ll do it, but I do know we’ll do it.”

California 30: Where It Would Go Supporters of the proposed California 30 through San Bernardino County say it would relieve the east-west traffic congestion that has plagued the growing area.