Judge Dubious of Report on Eastern Tollway

Saying that a proposed tollway in eastern Orange County is an “elephant that turns out to be a giraffe,” a Superior Court judge Friday indicated he might find the environmental review for the road inadequate.

Judge James L. Smith said he would decide by Tuesday the fate of the 23-mile, $700-million Eastern tollway’s environmental review, which has been challenged by environmentalists and the cities of Santa Ana and Laguna Beach.

The road would connect the Riverside Freeway near Weir Canyon to the Santa Ana Freeway in Irvine, providing a roughly parallel alternative to the heavily congested Costa Mesa Freeway.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, including homeowners, argued Friday that the environmental impact report for the road failed to adequately assess traffic impacts on Laguna Beach or the growth the road would facilitate elsewhere, especially in rural areas where none is planned. The report also failed to address alternatives to building the road itself and the project’s nonconformity with regional clean air and transportation plans.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Ellison Folk, contended, for example, that even though one leg of the tollway would connect directly to the Laguna Freeway, tollway studies do not show how many cars will proceed south to Laguna Beach, and what the impact on air quality would be. She referred to the problem as the “missing cars.”

But John J. Flynn III, attorney for the Transportation Corridor Agencies, argued that traffic analyses were done for the whole county, and that Laguna Beach was not singled out because the countywide review showed there would be no significant impact.

Smith said he was not inclined to agree with the plaintiffs’ arguments, except for a contention that tollway officials failed to disclose the project’s nonconformity with the regional mobility plan.

The mobility plan is administered by the Southern California Assn. of Governments. Uner existing regulations, every transportation project in Southern California must be in conformity or risk losing federal funding. The goal is to ensure that projects help meet clean air standards rather than frustrate them.

The plan shows only one Eastern tollway connection at the Santa Ana Freeway, at the Laguna Freeway. But tollway officials are planning to build a second leg along Jamboree Road, west of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

“There is a difference,” the judge said. “I have some significant questions about that.”

After the hearing, tollway lawyers said SCAG is processing an amendment to the regional mobility plan that would include the tollway’s western leg.

But Folk said such an amendment would still require a reassessment of air quality impacts--the same reassessment that she alleges should have been included in the tollway’s previous reviews.

Additional environmental analyses could take six months to a year, but construction is not due to begin until 1996.

The Eastern Transportation Corridor is one of three publicly owned toll road projects in the county.