From the Freeway to the Feeway : An interesting idea runs up against local objections

The freeway is such a national symbol for the California lifestyle that it may seem to some heretical even to talk about building roads where you have to pay to ride. In Orange County, where several toll roads are on the drawing boards, the planned San Joaquin Hills tollway project is an example of a shift in thinking from freeways to feeways. It’s also becoming a case study in the complications that can accompany such plans in a region already trying to cope with the rapid development of recent years.

The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency has been swimming for some time in the uncertain waters of final-cost and toll-revenue projections, and is relying in part on developer financing fees to get the road built. But now the agency finds itself with much more than a toll- booth accounting calculation: It has a major public relations problem with two cities.

One, Laguna Beach, has just agreed to spend taxpayer money to preserve part of a pristine canyon from a housing development and is in no welcoming mood for this road that’s planned to traverse nearby. To the south, San Juan Capistrano has expressed written reservations about a draft environmental impact report, despite the fact that Mayor Kenneth E. Friess is vice chairman of the corridor board of directors and a supporter. An overflow public meeting Dec. 11 was put over to Jan. 8 at a bigger site so that more people can be heard.

The project, to run 15 miles through coastal hills from San Juan Capistrano to Newport Beach, and with a new interchange at Interstate 5, is supposed to ease congestion, not raise blood pressure. Yet the problem with the cities shows that getting consensus can be complicated. Clearly, the advance community work hasn’t all been done. Now there is talk of further carrot-and-stick diplomacy: the county threatens to punish Laguna Beach by withholding money for open space; the city may let environmentalists carry the torch in court.

With all this, construction is planned for next year. What has taken so long for an agency and several key communities to iron out basic differences? These differences should have been addressed sooner.

The toll road shares with the freeway the goal of providing motorists with freedom and convenience, only it does so at a price to the user. But rapid development has somehow soured the local psychology; those who propose toll roads had better be prepared to deal with those who want to preserve their turf.