Both Sides Cheered by Judge’s Tollway Ruling

A Superior Court judge took the middle ground Monday in the battle over the San Joaquin Hills tollway, allowing construction to proceed on the road linking it with Interstate 5, but requiring the tollway agency to do additional environmental studies, according to attorneys involved in the fracas.

“If they do anything different than they said they were going to do, the judge says they have to do environmental studies,” said Mark Rosen, attorney for a San Juan Capistrano citizens group fighting the tollway. “As I see it, it’s a victory.”

Judge Leonard Goldstein lifted a May 31 order halting work on a two-mile stretch of Rancho Viejo Road, which the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency plans to move east to make way for the tollway interchange.

Save Our San Juan, the citizens group, had sought to block construction, arguing that the tollway agency intended to move the frontage road much closer to homes than the original plans specified.

Monday both sides were claiming victory, though neither had yet seen the ruling. Copies of the decision are available today.

Rosen said the ruling points out at least two areas where the tollway agency, by its own admission, plans to move the road farther than the scope of the original environmental studies. The ruling also directs Rosen to write the order that will prohibit construction in those areas until new studies are completed, Rosen said.

“Basically it starts the whole process over,” Rosen said.

But Mark Stockstill, the tollway agency’s public affairs director, said Rosen is exaggerating the ruling and that the environmental studies required by the judge will not be a problem.

“We’re not terribly concerned about meeting the conditions set forth,” Stockstill said. “The order has been lifted. We view that as positive. We’re confident the corridor will be built as planned.”

Stockstill said the delay caused by the injunction had not hurt the tollway project because crews were working on other sections, including other tollway-related work in San Juan Capistrano. The injunction temporarily halted construction on two miles at the corridor’s southern tip, south of Paseo de Colinas in Laguna Niguel.

Stockstill said the ruling allows them to start work on all but the disputed portions immediately.

“We’ll resume work in that area as soon as possible,” he said.

The 4.6-mile Laguna Canyon stretch of the tollway recently has been the focus of bitter protests. Last week an environmental activist chained himself to a bulldozer, and another was arrested in a demonstration that snarled traffic on the narrow canyon road. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction halting bulldozers while a judicial panel considers the activists’ emergency move to appeal a lower court decision against them.

When completed, the 17.2-mile toll road will wind from the Corona Del Mar Freeway in Newport Beach through Laguna Niguel and merge with the Interstate 5 freeway in San Juan Capistrano near Avery Parkway.

A majority of the San Juan Capistrano City Council recently voted not to challenge the planned tollway interchange in exchange for about $2.5 million in promised roadway and other improvements.