L.A. Fiscal Woes Threaten Local Highway Plans : Transportation: The $1.1-billion Eastern tollway and the proposed parking garage-transit center near Disneyland are among the projects jeopardized.

Revenue shortfalls and cost overruns on transportation projects in Los Angeles County are jeopardizing Orange County highway projects, including the planned $1.1-billion Eastern tollway and the combined parking garage-transit center planned near Disneyland.

“To think that Orange County projects could be put at risk due to a downturn in revenues in Los Angeles, that’s amazing,” fumed Stan Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority. “It’s all due to events that we have no control over.”

The problem arises because Orange and Los Angeles counties are partners in the same regional transportation and clean-air pacts. To offset the increased automotive emissions that could come from cars using new highways, each county makes a commitment to undertake a number of mass-transit or car-pool projects.

When the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority comes up short of funds, as it has this year, and cannot fulfill its commitments under plans to improve air quality, new highway projects throughout the region come under review.

Consequently, transportation officials at the six-county Southern California Assn. of Governments and the U.S. Department of Transportation are poised to delay or kill several highway projects--including those in counties that have no influence over Los Angeles’ budget woes.

“It’s been a combination of things,” said Sarah Siwek, a manager at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “It’s reduced revenues. In our original 30-year plan, there were revenue projections that were (overly) optimistic. . . . And some projects have cost more than we anticipated.”

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MTA currently faces a $126-million shortfall in operating funds, plus cost overruns of more than $200 million.

An OCTA staff report outlining the threat to Orange County’s highway program will be discussed today by OCTA’s board of directors.

The report lists projects at risk, including all toll roads not already under construction, the addition of lanes to the Costa Mesa Freeway north of the Garden Grove Freeway, the remodeling of the interchange between the San Diego and Corona del Mar freeways, the proposed elevated toll road that would extend the Orange Freeway from the Garden Grove Freeway down the Santa Ana River to Costa Mesa, the proposed auto garage and transit center across the street from Disney’s proposed Westcot expansion project, and several so-called “smart-street” efforts.

Regional planners have assured OCTA there is sufficient evidence that the region’s highway improvements will not create “excess” emissions and that previously adopted transportation control measures are being implemented “in a timely manner,” the OCTA report states.

But, the report adds, “the wild card this year is the weak financial condition of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. . . . The agency must demonstrate . . . that it has the financial resources” to pay for several new rail and car-pool projects.

The MTA must submit a letter by April that commits the agency to steps to fund the necessary projects through a combination of cost savings elsewhere and new revenues. It is likely that the cost savings would have to come from reduced bus service and that the new revenue would be from increased bus fares, OCTA officials said.

The board of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning body, is expected to decide whether the regional projects are in conformity with deadlines established in the clean-air pact.

James Ortner, OCTA’s manager of air-quality programs, said: “There’s no room for maneuvering on this one. They’ve really tightened up the rules.”

Even if a temporary solution is found, Ortner said, “they’re only going to push the day of reckoning back.”

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And there is a related problem: The Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District failed to meet a deadline for submitting a plan to reduce carbon monoxide emissions.

What does that have to do with Orange County?

Part of the desert area is included administratively in the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Without the desert basin’s carbon monoxide document in hand, regional planners are forced to conclude that its transportation improvement program does not conform to federal regulations.

OCTA officials said they will work with other agencies in the region to try to resolve both the carbon monoxide issue and the threat posed by the MTA’s financial crisis, which has been worsened by earthquake repair bills.

Ironically, said OCTA’s Ortner, failure to proceed with projects in both Los Angeles and Orange County will result in more congestion and a net increase in smog.