2 O.C. Public Land Toll Roads Among First 4 to Win Appeal

Proposals to build California’s first four toll roads on public land, two in Orange County, won approval Wednesday from a state appeals court, which rejected claims that the projects would illegally divert state jobs to the private sector.

Unless overturned on appeal, the ruling would resolve all current legal challenges to the projects, three in the south and one in the north. A separate environmental challenge to the longest of the roads, an 85-mile highway from Vacaville to Fremont, was dismissed earlier.

The roads are to be built and managed by private developers, who would lease the land for 35 years and then return it to the state.

The toll roads, authorized by a 1989 state law, are still in the planning stages. Further lawsuits are possible after environmental impact reports are issued.

Ground may be broken this year on one project, four new lanes in the current median strip of the Riverside Freeway from near Peralta Hills in northeastern Orange County to the Riverside County line. Tolls would be charged only to vehicles with one or two occupants.

The second, an 11.2-mile extension of the Orange Freeway, would link the Santa Ana Freeway at Anaheim Stadium to the San Diego Freeway near John Wayne Airport. The project to construct a four-lane tollway traversing the county was estimated in 1991 to cost $700 million.

In the southern portion of San Diego County, a 10-mile highway will be built from Otay Mesa to existing freeways.

The law did not fix any amount for the tolls but limited the profits the developers can make during their 35-year lease.

Another toll road, unconnected with the 1989 law or the lawsuit, the San Joaquin Hills Tranportation Corridor, is being planned in southern Orange County with local and federal funds.