Judge Gives Toll Roads Tentative OK; Engineers’ Work-Loss Claim Rejected

A judge here has tentatively approved four privately built toll roads on public land, among them one planned for the center median of the Riverside Freeway in eastern Orange County and another that would run along the Santa Ana River.

If upheld on appeal, the ruling by Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollak would remove the major legal barriers to the roads, which were authorized by a 1989 state law.

Pollak rejected state employees’ claims that the turnpikes would illegally divert state jobs and resources to the private sector.

The two other routes are in San Diego County and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pollak’s decision “removes a significant roadblock to highway construction in California,” Geoffrey Yarema, an attorney for developers of the Southern California toll roads, said Thursday.

“The court doesn’t seem to want to get in the way of what the Legislature has made in terms of policy for these private roads,” said Dennis Moss, attorney for Professional Engineers in California Government group, which has 4,000 members.

The group argued in its suit that the projects violated state constitutional standards on diversions of civil service jobs, gifts of public funds to private entities, and the state’s obligation to protect the public welfare.

Pollak rejected those arguments in a preliminary ruling released Wednesday. He gave all sides 10 days to file comments before he would issue a final decision.

The projects in Orange County:

* An 11.2-mile link to be elevated on pilings above the Santa Ana River from Anaheim Stadium to the San Diego Freeway in Orange County.

* Four new lanes in the median strip of the Riverside Freeway starting at the Costa Mesa Freeway in Orange County and extending east to the Riverside County line.

The four would be California’s first toll roads to be built on public property since horse-and-buggy days, said Jim Drago, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. Seventeen-Mile Drive, on private property in the Monterey Peninsula, is the only private toll road, he said.

One argument in the state engineers’ suit was that the design of highways was traditionally done by state employees and could not be assigned elsewhere without violating the state Constitution civil-service provisions.

Pollak disagreed, saying the restrictions on contracting state jobs do not apply to projects built with private funds.