Tollway Plan Scaled Back to Six Lanes : Transportation: Soaring costs for the proposed San Joaquin Hills road have led planners to quietly narrow their eight-lane design to six.

Faced with soaring costs, officials overseeing Orange County’s San Joaquin Hills tollway project are quietly reducing the planned width from eight to six lanes, a move that critics say violates a state financial aid agreement.

Final design work for six lanes is already under way for sections of the 15-mile toll road, even though a mandatory environmental impact report has not been completed.

The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency’s board also has never formally voted to accept a six-lane configuration. Nor has the board voted on a plan submitted jointly by Newport Beach and Irvine for six lanes plus reversible car-pool lanes and rail transit in the median.

“Not to do it right seems dumb to me,” said Joseph Duffel, a member of the California Transportation Commission, who voted with a unanimous panel in 1988 to assist the financially ailing project. “I hope they have good reasons for what they’re doing.”

Tollway officials defended their actions this week, saying they will deliver a carefully crafted, detailed report to the California Transportation Commission in July that will include updated financial projections and an explanation for why an eight-lane highway might not be built in the near future.

The tollway, one of three planned in South Orange County, is already two years behind schedule. It would be an extension of the Corona Del Mar Freeway from MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach to Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano. About 48% of the construction costs are expected to come from developer fees, with the rest coming from bonds secured by anticipated toll revenue and a few state or federal grants.

Without the San Joaquin Hills tollway, traffic in South Orange County will be a “disaster,” according to County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose district encompasses the project.

In October, 1988, Riley and tollway agency officials persuaded the California Transportation Commission to earmark $46.5 million in state funds for the planned San Joaquin Hills-Interstate 5 interchange. They also secured a commission pledge of a $75-million loan.

But one of the stated purposes of the financial assistance was to ensure construction of the entire project at one time, not in phases. Also, the policy adopted by the commission specifically requires development of a financial plan for an eight-lane tollway and annual reports detailing any variations in revenues or expenditures.

“The chance of losing that (state) money is a distinct possibility, and the costs keep going up,” said Riley, who sits on the San Joaquin Hills agency board. He added that he had reminded other tollway board members of the commitment to the state commission, but was assured by them that they could “win over” state commissioners.

Executive Director William C. Woollett Jr. acknowledged this week that tollway officials are late in explaining to state officials what has changed and why.

The problem, he said, stems from the unavailability of updated toll revenue forecasts and a final financial plan.

“We are still putting together all of the data,” he said. “I don’t have all the answers to the questions that will be asked and should be asked.”

Officials at the Southern California Assn. of Governments, meanwhile, have threatened to block state and federal funding if the project does not contain car-pool lanes. None of the special lanes are currently included in project-cost estimates.

The project’s problems were highlighted recently when Wally Kreutzen, deputy director of finance for the tollway agency, released cash-flow projections showing that the agency will be broke in eight months and needs a new source of pre-construction financing to continue costly design work.

Former county Supervisor Bruce Nestande, a member of the state Transportation Commission, said he believes the project will go forward. “In my opinion the project is not in jeopardy,” he said. “That’s because I’m making an assumption that vital decisions that have to be made will be made. . . . The San Joaquin Hills corridor will be built.”

How much the tollway project will wind up costing is anyone’s guess. Earlier this year, tollway officials released a cost estimate of $601 million, but that was for six lanes, not eight. The Newport Beach-Irvine proposal would cost $683.6 million. And an eight-lane tollway was pegged at about $706.7 million.

But all of these figures were based on 1989 dollars, not the final cost in escalated, or inflation-adjusted, dollars.

Kreutzen said he was not ready to provide escalated cost figures. He admitted that “the old numbers, quite frankly, were wrong. They just weren’t good.”

Asked if the San Joaquin Hills tollway could cost as much as $1 billion, he said: “No, I don’t think it’s that high, but it’s getting close.”