Pay Per Drive : As State’s First Modern Tollway Nears Opening, Backers Tout It as Wave of Future

California’s first modern tollway opens to traffic a week from today in the dusty foothills of Orange County where the growth of well-manicured communities has led to 10-mile commutes that can take more than an hour.

The initial segment measures only 3.2 miles. Eventually it will be a 30-mile, nearly $1-billion tollway allowing motorists on Interstate 5 to avoid the legendary snarls at the El Toro “Y,” the convergence of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways.

Ending California’s decades-old resistance to toll roads, the Foothill Tollway will collect a 50-cent fee for cars and offer motorists a high-tech automatic vehicle identification system that eliminates the need to stop at tollbooths.

By 2000, when the road is completed, tolls are expected to be about $4.50 for a trip along the entire length from San Clemente to Irvine.

The road was financed with developer fees and bonds, which are to be repaid by tolls and assessments on new-home buyers and businesses. Orange County is planning five such pay-as-you-drive roads, two funded and operated by private companies.

The 55-m.p.h. tollway represents a new wave of toll road construction occurring in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena said the Clinton Administration applauds this kind of project, and Caltrans Director James W. van Loben Sels called it “an excellent example of California’s creativity in pursuing alternative ways of financing” roads that “otherwise would not be built.”

Partly because of a lack of funds, fewer than five miles of freeway have been added to Orange County’s highway system since 1974. Meanwhile, the county’s population has jumped 41% and is expected to rise by 500,000 by 2010, to 3.1 million

The highway partly exists to accommodate future growth. But it is at odds with environmentalists concerned about damage to endangered or threatened wildlife species, including the California gnatcatcher, a rare songbird.

Developments have already spread along the northern half of the 30-mile Foothill route, partly in anticipation of the tollway, which has been shown on county maps since the mid-1970s. The planned communities of Coto de Caza, Foothill Ranch, Portola Hills and the much larger Rancho Santa Margarita are growing in response to the tollway.

In Foothill Ranch, a new shopping center with the county’s first Wal-Mart is planned next to the initial 3.2-mile segment. Rancho Santa Margarita is attracting employers who otherwise might leave the county. Loral Aeronutronic, which had considered moving from Newport Beach to Texas, cited the proximity of the Foothill Tollway in deciding last week to relocate to Rancho Santa Margarita instead.

But some think the road is a dinosaur. Judy Davis, of Citizens Against the Tollroads, said these highways “represent old 1950s-style thinking.”

“Pouring more concrete is not the answer,” Davis said. “We sympathize with the suckers who bought houses near the Foothill toll road, because they have to get to work. But our quality of life is being destroyed.”

The first tollway segment extends from Portola Parkway near Lake Forest to a new, 4.5-mile extension of Portola Parkway that ends at Jeffrey Road in Irvine. The Portola Parkway extension will not have a toll.

Some anti-toll road activists are expected to picket the road’s grand opening ceremonies, which begin Saturday morning.

The ceremonies will feature Irvine police Sgt. Brian Clifton, who was the first person to sign up for the tollway’s FasTrak system, which utilizes dashboard-mounted transponders and AT & T “Smart Cards” The wafer-thin cards are inserted in the transponders, which exchange account information with tollway computers, thus allowing motorists to bypass tollbooths.

“I know it will reduce some traffic-related stress,” Clifton said.

FasTrak users deposit $30 in advance to start their accounts and receive the transponders and Smart Cards. Also, motorists can deposit coins into automated collection bins or pay an attendant.

The tolls will not kick in until Nov. 1, in order to allow motorists time to become familiar with the road and equipment.

Much of the road’s success will hinge on the high-tech gear used to operate the tollway.

But there have been some glitches.

The dashboard-mounted transponders tend to shut down when temperatures exceed 190 degrees inside a car, such as when the windows are rolled up on a hot day.

“We’re looking at temperatures over 200 degrees in some situations,” said Dennis Bennett of Lockheed IMS, a subsidiary of the giant aerospace firm, which is responsible for the toll collection system. “We found that the devices are programmed to avoid overheating by shutting down.”

As a result, researchers probably will change the color of the transponder casings from black to white or another, more heat-deflecting material.

Bennett is confident that this and other glitches can be worked out. Lockheed, which hopes to cash in on defense conversion opportunities, has at risk its $600-million contract to build and manage the toll collection system for all three Orange County public toll road projects.

“This is exactly why you do a lot of tests, to see what fine-tuning and tweaking you have to do,” Bennett said.

Although admitting that the initial 3.2-mile segment will not relieve much congestion, Bennett defended the symbolic and technical role the first section will play in introducing the system.

“This allows you to get up and running and show people what this is all about,” he said. “And to work the bugs out.”

Stan Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority, said eventually the road will be an alternative to Interstate 5, which he called “a nightmare” for many motorists.

“This ushers in a new era,” he added. “The tollway represents a different way to look at how we solve our traffic problems. When you consider the other toll road projects pending in Orange County, we’re at the center of innovation.”