Judge Upholds Environmental Review of Tollway : Courts: Eastern Transportation Corridor report meets ‘all procedural requirements’ despite objections by homeowners and cities of Santa Ana, Laguna Beach.

A Superior Court judge Tuesday upheld the adequacy of the environmental review for the embattled Eastern Transportation Corridor, one of Orange County’s three publicly owned toll road projects.

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In a one-page opinion, Judge James L. Smith stepped away from hints made at Friday’s hearing that he might find the environmental review inadequate because the design is not included in regional traffic and air quality plans. Instead, he declared that his duty is to determine whether the $700-million project’s environmental impact report is based on “substantial evidence,” and not whether he agrees with that evidence.

He acknowledged that two sides disagree about the effects of the road.

The plaintiffs, including the Tustin Hills Homeowners Assn. and the cities of Laguna Beach and Santa Ana, assert there will be “irreparable damage to the environment,” Smith wrote, while tollway officials “trumpet the negative impact on the quality of life in Orange County” if the road is not built and the Santa Ana Freeway remains “a very long and very narrow parking lot.”

But the judge concluded: “It is not the function of the court to weigh the conflicting evidence. . . . The court has reviewed the record and finds that all procedural requirements have been met and there is substantial evidence to support the actions” of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which oversee the county’s public tollway efforts.

The plaintiffs had accused the tollway agency of failing to consider several impacts of the road, including the likelihood that it would generate growth in rural areas where none is currently planned, and increase traffic and pollution in Laguna Beach.

Construction isn’t scheduled to begin until 1996.

The 23-mile toll road will connect the Riverside Freeway near Weir Canyon with the Santa Ana Freeway in Irvine, in two different locations. The western leg would intersect the Santa Ana Freeway near Jamboree Boulevard, the other leg would meet the current terminus of the Laguna Freeway.

An appeal is possible.

“We have to consult our clients before we can make the decision,” said Ellison Folk, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “We’re definitely disappointed in the decision. I think there are a wide range of impacts from the road that have not yet been mitigated. We think there should be a closer look at the impacts it will have all up and down its alignment.”

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Disputing the judge’s view somewhat, Folk said her case was not based on a critique of the tollway agency’s evidence, but rather that the agency failed to address a whole range of potential problems. These included the likely increase in traffic in Laguna Beach due to the road’s direct tie-in to the Laguna Freeway, which she said would provide Inland Empire residents with a “straight shot” to the coast.

Tollway spokesman Mike Stockstill described the judge’s ruling as a “big victory” and said his agency is “very pleased.”

Santa Ana City Manager David N. Ream, noting he had yet to see the opinion, declared his city is “disappointed.”

For more than a year, Santa Ana has threatened to pull out of the tollway agency unless it agrees to build the western leg, the one closest to the city, first.

“We don’t think it’s right to have Santa Ana developers contributing fees to a road that runs straight through Irvine Co. land to the Irvine Spectrum,” he said.

Tollway officials said they have agreed to build the entire road at once, but Santa Ana wants a guarantee that if that turns out not to be economically feasible, the western leg will be constructed first.

But Santa Ana never raised the scheduling issue during the court case.

During the hearing Friday, Smith called the proposed tollway an “elephant that turns out to be a giraffe.” He indicated that he might rule in favor of environmentalists because the Laguna Freeway connection was not included in regional clean air and traffic plans approved by the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Those plans are designed to ensure that transportation projects don’t frustrate clean air goals. But the judge didn’t refer to the regional planning dilemma in his ruling Tuesday.

SCAG is processing an amendment to include the Laguna Freeway connection in its plans.

On Friday, Smith will hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging the sale of land by the University of California to build the San Joaquin Hills tollway, near Irvine. The land is in a campus-held ecological preserve.