Early Start on a Short Stretch of San Joaquin Tollway Urged : Transportation: Opponents contend that the road’s backers are trying to circumvent normal processes. Supervisor Riley lends his support to project.

With efforts to build the $778-million San Joaquin Hills tollway slowed by legal difficulties and regulatory uncertainties, authorities are considering ways to lay down a short, four-lane slice of the route to provide quicker relief for the traffic-choked South County.

The idea, which is being championed by Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, calls for building the road through Aliso Viejo to funnel traffic from the area’s burgeoning subdivisions onto Laguna Canyon Road and out to the San Diego Freeway.

Although county officials are bullish on the proposal, which could provide traffic relief to the region at least a year before the more ambitious six-lane highway is in operation, tollway opponents say the plan is a thinly veiled attempt to short-circuit efforts to block the highway.

“It’s transparent what they’re doing,” said Norm Grossman, a leader of Laguna Greenbelt Inc., which is suing to stop the tollway. “They’re trying to lay concrete however possible; they’re trying to get around the law however possible. When everything else fails, they can say, ‘Let us go back and finish (the tollway) since part of it is already on the ground.’ ”

But tollway supporters say the proposal to build a 4-mile segment is on a solid legal footing and would boost the campaign to build the entire 15-mile highway, which would link Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano with the Corona del Mar Freeway in Newport Beach.

With a lawsuit pending against the tollway, foes say any construction work should wait until the court battle is settled. But the highway’s boosters contend that there is no legal reason to delay work on the Aliso Viejo section because they have completed the state-mandated environmental reviews.

“I think it’s a way to show the public our commitment to try to get these corridors moving,” said Riley, who also serves on the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency’s board of directors.

Riley and other authorities say early construction of the segment will not only boost public support for the tollway project, but it will also buoy its status in the banking community. With the ongoing housing slump, developer fees that will help pay for the highway have evaporated and questions have been raised about the project’s financial viability.

“At this point, I don’t think they’ve made any firm decisions, they’re just considering their options,” said Les Brooks, a state Department of Transportation senior engineer who is keeping an eye on the tollway project. “There is a general sense they need to do something to reduce the initial cost of the project. . . . They also need to get something on the ground so they can start collecting tolls, then when the traffic builds up, they’ll have something to take to the bankers” to prove that the highway will work financially.

Authorities say that construction of the short stretch of road through Aliso Viejo should provide a fair measure of traffic relief.

In particular, it would ease problems at the intersection of Laguna Canyon and El Toro roads, which is clogged each day by motorists seeking a roundabout route to jobs in the county’s commercial hubs.

Before any work could begin on the interim road, a vast number of details must be resolved.

Greg Henk, deputy director for construction at the tollway agency, said little headway can be made until Kiewit Pacific Co., a nationwide construction firm that submitted the low bid for the project, is ready to begin work. The tollway agency’s board of directors voted unanimously Thursday to award a contract to Kiewit, but it will take until about November to work out final details, Henk said.

Despite such constraints, some officials remain confident that construction could start on the interim road by the first quarter of 1992.

The centerpiece of the proposal is a plan to build the lanes with $34 million that the Mission Viejo Co. has agreed to pay the county to close out its obligations for road and tollway construction in Aliso Viejo, Riley aide Mark Goodman said. That deal permits the development firm to build the last phase of 2,700 homes in Aliso Viejo.

Although a lawsuit challenging the highway isn’t scheduled to be heard until Oct. 23, tollway supporters contend that there is nothing standing in the way of starting construction on the interim road.

“I think anything the (tollway agency) can get on the ground is going to help, particularly from the financing standpoint,” Kenneth Smith, transportation director of the County Environmental Management Agency, said. “In my opinion, this is not a way to get around the lawsuit; it is a way to provide some early financing for some meaningful improvements to the corridor.”

But opponents say such claims distort the truth.

“I think they’re wrong--there’s no basis to build any portion of the San Joaquin in advance of all the necessary approvals,” said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is challenging the tollway in court. “There’s a whole raft of approvals that haven’t been obtained. . . . If they are determined to move ahead with construction, they would leave us little option but to go to court” for a judge’s order to block the work.

Grossman of Laguna Greenbelt, which is a party with Reynolds’ group in the lawsuit, argued that the tollway agency would be circumventing air-quality regulations and other laws if it builds the temporary road.

In environmental reviews for the project, tollway officials argued that the highway had to be at least six lanes to avoid the sort of congestion that would cause more air pollution, Grossman said.

“A four-lane road, by their own figures, would cause congestion,” he said. “If they now say a four-lane road would do the trick, they’re in effect arguing against their own environmental document.”

Slice of Tollway Eager to provide traffic relief for South County, authorities are considering ways to build a short 4-mile stretch of the Ssan Joaquin Hills tollway. Plans for the overall 15-mile highway have been slowed by legal problems and regulatory uncertainties.