Riverside Freeway Car-Pool Lanes OKd, May Be Operated Privately

To hasten relief for commuters on the congested Riverside Freeway, county transportation officials agreed Monday to spend $16 million on four miles of car-pool lanes and gave a tollway firm the option to reimburse taxpayers and operate the lanes for profit.

Officials of the Orange County Transportation Authority said the arrangement, reportedly the first of its kind in the country, would accelerate completion of a project to widen the freeway by two lanes all the way from the Riverside County line west to the Orange Freeway.

“This is a good deal for commuters,” said Gary L. Hausdorfer, the San Juan Capistrano councilman who on Monday became chairman of the Transportation Authority. “We’ll get the car-pool lanes installed much faster this way.”

The firm, California Private Transportation Co. of Irvine, is already raising $100 million in private money to build and operate toll lanes in the existing median strip from the Riverside County line west to the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Under the agreement signed Monday, the OCTA will use $16 million in Measure M funds to build the four-mile stretch of car-pool lanes between the Costa Mesa and Orange freeways. The segment built with taxpayer funds will connect with the 10-mile stretch being built by the private tollway firm from Riverside County to the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Even the privately built toll lanes will be free for car-poolers, although the minimum occupancy limit will be three people per vehicle instead of the two-person minimum that is the standard on other California highways.

The private tollway firm will have the option, under Monday’s agreement, to assume control of the four miles being built with tax revenues any time before they open to traffic, which is expected to occur in two years.

If the Irvine firm exercises its purchase option, officials say, the money reimbursed to OCTA for construction will be used for other needed transportation projects.

Hausdorfer acknowledged that the option, if exercised, will mean that the private firm has in effect received interest-free financing for four miles of private toll lanes, putting OCTA in the position of a lender.

“I don’t view it that way, but I know it could be interpreted that way,” Hausdorfer said after the OCTA meeting. “The state of California has already given them (CPTC) the franchise” for the entire, 14-mile stretch. But the private firm had immediate plans to build only 10 miles of lanes, from Riverside to the Costa Mesa Freeway, and county transportation officials wanted the two additional lanes extended the additional four miles to the Orange Freeway.

“I hope they (CPTC) will be there when the lanes are constructed to take them over. I believe that’s what’s best for the traveling public,” Hausdorfer said.

Measure M is the half-cent sales tax increase for traffic improvements approved by county voters in November, 1990. Although the Riverside Freeway was supposed to get new car-pool lanes anyway under Measure M, the state’s award of an experimental toll road franchise to CPTC could have legally interfered with those plans, OCTA officials said.

“CPTC has the right to operate toll lanes from one end of the county to the other,” said Lisa Mills, OCTA’s top planner. “We were already holding back for a while, to let them make a decision. But rather than wait any longer, which could take several years, this agreement gets both segments open to traffic at the same time.”

Not everyone was happy with the agreement.

After the vote, during the portion of the meeting reserved for public comments, Gordon Ruser of an environmental group called Friends of the Tecate Cypress criticized OCTA for not holding public hearings on the toll lanes.

Ruser said his group was concerned that adding lanes to the Riverside Freeway will allow more traffic, which in turn would promote new residential and commercial development along the route that could adversely affect the rare tree and animal migration paths in the Anaheim Hills area.

OCTA Chief Executive Officer Stanley T. Oftelie told OCTA board members that no public hearings on the toll lanes were needed because environmental clearances have been obtained for the freeway improvement project and the Caltrans franchise awarded to CPTC never required hearings on toll lanes.

Friends of the Tecate Cypress have previously sued to block road construction in the Coal Canyon-Anaheim Hills area.

As part of Monday’s agreement, CPTC will reimburse $6.9 million to OCTA for funds already spent on early planning of the freeway improvements, environmental clearances and for CPTC’s share of design and construction costs for modifying the freeway bridge spanning the Santa Ana River.

Also, CPTC will retain an option to build toll lanes west of the Orange Freeway, all the way to the San Gabriel River Freeway in Los Angeles County.

In addition to providing relief to one of the most heavily congested highways in California, the toll lanes will also provide transportation officials with their first opportunity to test congestion pricing, the concept of charging motorists more to use a highway during peak hours.

CPTC, a limited partnership between CRSS Inc., a major design and engineering firm, and COFIROUTE Corp., a French toll road company, expects one-way tolls of $2 during peak hours, $1 in off-peak periods.

During Monday’s meeting, Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton, OCTA’s outgoing chairman, praised the agency’s accomplishments in the year since the agency was created out of a merger of several pre-existing entities, including the county transportation commission and the county transit district.