Tollways Amendment to Be on Ballot
A Constitutional amendment to limit the life of tolls on four privately built highways--two of them in Orange County--was given final approval Thursday by the Legislature.
The state Senate voted, 27 to 8, to approve Assembly changes. The proposal will now go on the November election ballot.
Under the amendment, tolls on roads owned by the state but leased to private companies would cease after 35 years or when the leases expired. The Legislature could extend the tolls.
The state signed contracts last year with private companies to build a tollway in the Bay Area and in San Diego County, plus two in Orange County: a privately operated route built for about $88 million in the median of the Riverside Freeway, on a 10-mile stretch between the Riverside County border and the Costa Mesa Freeway; and a $700-million, 11-mile extension of the Orange Freeway--on stilts in the middle of the Santa Ana River--from the Garden Grove Freeway to the Corona del Mar Freeway.
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