State OKs Deal for Toll Road From Stadium to John Wayne : Transportation: Commuters would pay $2.50 to drive the 11.2 miles. The $750-million project would tie in with the proposed California-Las Vegas high-speed train terminus in Anaheim.

The state Department of Transportation on Friday signed an agreement with a consortium headed by Texas computer magnate H. Ross Perot clearing the way for a private toll road through the heart of Orange County from Anaheim Stadium to John Wayne Airport.

Details of the contract, however, won’t be released until Monday, officials said.

The signing formalizes the last of four franchises granted through competitive bidding by Caltrans under a unique program to encourage the construction of privately built toll roads throughout the state. The projects were approved by the state in September, but contract negotiations with the firms that sponsored each one were not concluded until now.

In selecting four projects statewide in September, Caltrans had picked two in Orange County.

The first will be constructed by 1994 in the median of the Riverside Freeway, from the Costa Mesa Freeway in Anaheim to the San Bernardino County line. A Caltrans franchise agreement with a team including CRSS Inc. and Citibank was signed earlier this week for the proposed 10-mile, $88.3-million roadway.

Friday’s franchise agreement officially authorizes a second Orange County project, which would stretch 11.2 miles on pillars erected in the Santa Ana River flood plain, although environmental reviews lie ahead. Officials hope to have the road open by 1997, but some transportation authorities suggest that the date could be optimistic.

The ambitious, $750-million project would start at the Santa Ana Freeway near the stadium and Disneyland, extend southwest to the San Diego Freeway and then curve eastward to the Corona del Mar Freeway near John Wayne Airport.

Plans submitted for the road by a group headed by Perot call for the project to tie into the Amtrak station near Anaheim Stadium, where the proposed California-Las Vegas high-speed train is expected to terminate. Commuters using the route will be charged $2.50 to drive the full length of the road. Construction is scheduled to begin in mid-1994, with completion estimated for April, 1997.

But some local transportation officials speculate that intense environmental reviews of the project, which will run past existing neighborhoods and sections of the river that serve as bird habitat--as well as the need to coordinate the work with the massive, $1-billion Santa Ana River Flood Control Project, could delay start of construction until later this decade.

Bruce Nestande, former Orange County supervisor and legislator now serving on the California Transportation Commission, hailed Friday’s signing as a vital step in local transportation development.

“I think that without question, this is probably the most significant (toll road) in California,” he said. “If it weren’t for the privatization and what happened today, that road would never be built.”

Once completed, the Perot and Riverside Freeway toll roads will be deeded over to the state, but each consortium will retain the right to collect tolls for the next 35 years.

The two privately built roadways bring to five the number of toll roads planned for Orange County. Two years ago, the Legislature approved construction of three other pay-as-you-go thoroughfares, but those projects are publicly owned.

O.C. Private Toll Roads Orange County scored big Friday as the state approved a contract for the second of two new private toll roads. The 11.2-mile, $700-million elevated expressway is planned in the middleof the Santa Ana River flood plain. The other-a 10-mile, $88.3-million toll road in the Riverside Freeway median-was approved last week. They join three tollways already planned in the county. Cross-section of Santa Ana River Flood Plain Bicycle Trail 15 feet wide Elevated Roadways Future Mass Transit Santa Ana River Channel Equestrian Trail 15 feet wide