Suit Seeks to Block Freeway Toll Lanes

An environmental group sued Caltrans on Wednesday seeking to halt construction of toll lanes on the heavily traveled Riverside Freeway until an environmental impact report of the project can be done.

Friends of the Tecate Cypress allege that Caltrans has not properly considered the “significant impact” that the lanes could have on pollution, congestion and potential urban development.

“The idea of the toll lanes is probably a good idea, but the effects might be devastating to the environment,” said Connie Spenger, president of Friends of the Tecate Cypress, a small group of conservation activists.

Their civil lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, seeks an order to overturn Caltrans’ decision not to require an environmental impact report for the proposed toll lanes. Caltrans officials said in February that such a study was not necessary under the California Environmental Quality Act because the lanes would be built in the existing median of the Riverside Freeway.

The $100-million project calls for a set of toll lanes along 10 miles of dirt center strip between the Costa Mesa Freeway and the car-pool lanes already being built in Riverside County. Construction is scheduled to begin in September.

Proponents of the project say it will relieve congestion on the Riverside Freeway and be the first test of a pricing system that charges motorists more to use a highway during rush hours.

The lanes will be built by California Private Transportation Corp., an Irvine-based engineering firm. Company officials say they expect one-way tolls of $2 during peak hours and $1 in off-peak hours, and free access to car pools of three or more people.

“We made a big effort to talk with as many environmental groups as we could about the project,” said Frank Wilson, a spokesman for the firm. “This (lawsuit) is coming on the eleventh hour, out of left field.”

According to the suit, construction of about 9,500 housing units in Coal and Gypsum canyons is “contingent” on completion of the toll lanes. The toll lanes therefore pose a substantial threat to the environment and should be studied, Spenger said.

Particularly at risk, the lawsuit states, are rare and endangered species such as mountain lions, California gnatcatchers, least Bell’s vireos and Tecate cypress trees, which the group has tried to protect. Of these, mountain lions might be more affected by the highway project and the pending housing projects than other wildlife.

The housing projects would “shut off the wildlife corridor between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Chino Hills and basically make the mountain lion extinct in the Chino Hills,” Spenger said.

Furthermore, Friends of the Tecate Cypress contends that the new housing would bring more drivers to the area and eventually fill the new toll lanes, making the freeway as congested as it is now.

“We want the environmental impact report to address the growth issue,” Spenger said. “We’re not trying to stop the toll lanes (construction), we just want Caltrans to consider the impact to the environment.”

Officials of the California Transportation Department could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. But Wilson, the California Private Transportation spokesman, said he was “surprised” by the lawsuit.

Caltrans approved an “initial study and negative declaration,” which cleared the way for work on the proposed lanes without an impact report, Wilson said. He added that all established environmental groups were given copies of the initial study and publicly expressed no opposition.