Toll Roads Can Go Off Course : Wholly private projects shouldn’t benefit from public funds

There are two categories of toll roads. One involves a measure of public funding and management by a quasi-public agency; the other is a wholly private project granted certain rights by the state but owned and operated by a private business. The distinction is crucial, because in California both kinds of toll-road operations are in the works.

In 1989, when the Legislature decided to allow wholly private toll roads to be built as demonstration projects, it expected these roads to be constructed without public funds. Recently some lawmakers in Sacramento have had to remind transportation officials and road builders of that fact.

Orange County was awarded two roads and San Diego received one (the fourth is near San Francisco). The two in Orange County are in addition to three other toll roads planned there--in the San Joaquin Hills, Eastern and Foothill Transportation Corridors--of the wholly public kind. Unlike the two private toll roads, the three other transportation corridors always have involved public funds. They were conceived as freeways, but, because of a funds shortage, are now planned as toll roads under quasi-public agencies.

Now, despite the intent of the Legislature, the Orange County Transportation Commission has voted to spend $300,000 in public money to help pay for environmental studies on the two strictly private toll roads. The planned use of public money that way, and on the road in the Bay Area, has prompted State Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) to introduce a bill seeking to stop the use of public money.

That bill should at least trigger needed clarification. Once such “private” toll roads start receiving public subsidies, where would the subsidies end? What if the private developer underestimated the costs? Would public money be used to complete the roads?

When Sacramento decided to enfranchise the private route for some toll roads, it intended to rule out public funding. That was the right decision. Any change needs full legislative attention.