Countywide : OCTA Seeks to Swap Measure M Funds

For the first time, county transportation officials are proposing a major revision to Measure M highway funding due to a shortage of state tax dollars for the large, $1.6-billion Santa Ana Freeway widening project.

Orange County Transportation Authority officials said the agency’s board will be asked Monday to approve a Measure M amendment, which would transfer about $208 million from other projects to the Santa Ana Freeway work. About $94 million would come from the Costa Mesa Freeway widening north of the Garden Grove Freeway, and $114 million from the widening of the Riverside Freeway between the Orange Freeway and the Los Angeles County line.

The transfer would delay for about two to four years the projects on the Costa Mesa and Riverside freeways.

“Reconstruction of Interstate 5 has been identified as the highest transportation priority in Orange County,” states an OCTA staff report that supports the funding amendment. “A $3-billion shortfall in statewide transportation funding may now restrict funding for this project and delay its completion.” The report noted that Orange County will not at this time receive a “commitment for additional state funding for construction of the remaining four projects” on the Santa Ana Freeway between the Garden Grove and Riverside freeways.

OCTA officials hope to swap Measure M dollars now for state funds later.

The proposed change would have to be approved by a two-thirds vote of both the OCTA board and the Measure M Citizens Oversight Committee. Measure M was adopted by voters in 1990 and created a half-cent sales tax to be used for specific traffic improvements.

Donald Lawrenz Jr., a Newport Beach health care administrator who chairs the oversight committee, declined Wednesday to speculate on how controversial the proposed swap might be when it comes before his panel.

“It all depends,” Lawrenz said. “All our meetings are public, and so the public is going to have an opportunity to comment on it.”

Lawrenz said the committee was briefed about 90 days ago on the state’s $3-billion shortfall in planned transportation expenditures. The shortages are being attributed mostly to recession-related reductions in state tax revenue.