O.C. Corridor Backers Hail $2-$4.50 Toll Projections

Put away that dollar bill and go straight for a five.

With highway congestion growing worse by the day, a new study shows that Orange County motorists might be willing to pay between $2 and $4.50 to take a spin on one of the three tollways proposed for the county.

While that cost of admission is roughly double what forecasters initially predicted, it bolsters the chances that the new highways will be financially feasible. But it comes at a price: drivers would be paying anywhere from $20 to $45 a week to make five round trips, depending on which tollway they use.

“I think people have historically underestimated the sorts of tolls these roads could generate,” said John Cox, chairman of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency board. “We had been looking to see whether there was an opportunity for higher rates, and this certainly demonstrated that.”

The study, conducted by a private consulting firm, found that motorists would be willing to pay a toll of between $2 and $2.25 on the San Joaquin Hills tollway, which would run 15 miles from Newport Beach to San Juan Capistrano.

It also forecast that a toll between $3.75 and $4.50 could be charged on the 30-mile Foothill Transportation Corridor and $2.50 to $3.25 on the Eastern Transportation Corridor, a 23-mile tollway planned to funnel traffic to and from Riverside County.

Whether the public will actually pay such a price for the privilege of steering onto the exclusive strips will remain unclear until each of the tollways opens during the coming decade. The tollway agencies will eventually set the fees charged motorists.

But for officials with the two agencies planning the three pay-to-drive highways, the study provides valuable economic ammunition as they prepare to brave the financial markets to sell bonds for construction money.

“We can speculate all we want whether people will use them or not,” said Bruce Nestande, aide to an Orange County developer and influential member of the California Transportation Commission. “The response of the banks and the people in the bond market will be more telling.”

But officials with the agencies planning the roads were decidely more upbeat.

Gary L. Hausdorfer, chairman of the Foothill and Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, said he felt the tolls are both “realistic and good news.”

“I have always felt people would pay more for the convenience of using these toll roads,” Hausdorfer said. “We were basing our estimates on data that was not from Southern California.”

Cox said he was little surprised by the tolls projected by the study and predicted the higher rates would prove feasible because of the economic strength in Orange County as compared to other parts of the country.

“We thought our rates could be higher because of the higher income out here,” Cox said. “This just confirmed much of what we had been suspecting. When you see what people are spending on things, a $2 or $3 toll to save 30 minutes on your drive to work doesn’t seem so bad.”

The study, conducted by Wilbur Smith Associates, was ordered by the agencies after a survey by the consulting firm showed that ridership would drop if tolls on the Foothill and Eastern tollways exceeded $1.50.

While earlier surveys have focused on the travel behavior and spending ability of Orange County residents along Interstate 5 and the San Diego Freeway, the new study included commuters from the jammed Riverside, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana freeways.

Moreover, it took a far more detailed look at the income levels of residents of various areas around the county, instead of relying on a medium-income average for the entire county, according to Donna Stubbs, a spokeswoman for the tollway agencies.

Construction of San Joaquin tollway is set to begin in autumn, 1991, half a year behind previous schedules, with the project expected to be completed by autumn, 1995. Work on the Eastern corridor would begin in late 1991 and finish in mid-1996.

The Foothill tollway would be build in phases, beginning with a 7.6-mile stretch in Rancho Santa Margarita in late 1990 that would open in 1993. The rest of the project between Oso Parkway north to the Eastern Transportation Corridor is scheduled to open in mid-1996. The southern segment through San Clemente is not expected to open until sometime near the end of the decade.