Have a Heart--Build a Toll Road Bypass : Motorists Deserve a Way Around Newport Coast Drive Collection Booth Congestion

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) has complained long and loud about plans to collect tolls on a section of Newport Coast Drive when it is incorporated into the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor.

With equal fervor, the tollway agency has cited chapter and verse of a joint powers agreement used to form the Transportation Corridor Agency and an environmental impact report. It asserts that toll collection at the interchange of the corridor and Newport Coast Drive can’t be a surprise.

The issue actually has been hotly discussed for some months, but Ferguson stirred fresh attention when he said that the toll collections along the 1.4-mile stretch of Newport Coast would amount to “taking a public road and putting a toll on it.” While the tollway agency may be technically correct, the assemblyman’s point of view is supported by the practical experiences of motorists who use the road every day. Since 1991, they have had the benefit of free traveling along Newport Coast Drive, a route that has done much to speed transit from Laguna Beach and points south to Irvine and the Corona del Mar Freeway. When the road opened, nobody was saying much publicly about toll booths coming down the road, even though they may have been lying in wait in the fine print of those environmental impact statements. Naturally, these motorists do not relish the thought of paying a toll on a stretch of road that is now free.

Moreover, Ferguson’s own constituency understandably does not want congestion in Corona del Mar and along MacArthur Boulevard as commuters seek a way around the tolls.

The way out of this dilemma must lie in the ability of the corridor agency and county to deliver on a bypass road for those wanting to avoid a toll. That bypass is supposed to be an extension of Ford Road to hook up with the part of Newport Coast Drive that will remain toll-free. Finding the money to build that extension is another matter, but to show good faith, the agency could allow free passage on Newport Coast Drive until a bypass can be built, if there is a delay.