Countywide : Tollway Months Ahead of Schedule

Nearly two years to the day that construction began on a 15-mile toll road linking San Juan Capistrano and Newport Beach, transportation officials said Monday that work on the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor is ahead of schedule and the toll road should open by the beginning of 1997.

“I’d say it will be right around the first of the year,” said G. Brent Muchow, deputy chief engineer of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the public bodies overseeing the project.

“You just have to look at the progress that’s been made so far.” Work is two to three months ahead of schedule, he said.

Barring heavy rains or other problems, the first section of the toll road--four miles between Moulton Parkway and Laguna Canyon Road--is scheduled for completion next July.

A year from now, the southbound lanes of the toll road should be linked between Interstate 5 and Moulton.

Despite a court injunction against the road that caused a 16-month delay in grading the land, contractors have caught up by working 10-hour shifts and putting extra equipment on the job, Muchow said.

Their incentive? They receive 70% of the net toll road revenue each day the tollway opens ahead of the originally scheduled March, 10, 1997, completion date. Any delay after that date costs the contractor $225,000 a day.

The toll road’s southernmost point is Interstate 5, just south of Crown Valley Parkway. Its northern terminus is the Corona del Mar Freeway at MacArthur Boulevard.

On Wednesday night, motorists using MacArthur will be rerouted at Ford Road onto a new six-lane bridge that will connect with the Corona del Mar Freeway.

“The old road will be obliterated,” said Dan Howell, project manager for California Corridor Constructors, the main construction firm on the site.

On Sept. 20, motorists will be able to travel north on MacArthur from University Drive. The ramp had been closed because of construction.

The $1.4-billion tollway will have 10 interchanges, including El Toro Road, Laguna Canyon Road, Newport Coast Drive and Aliso Creek Road.

It will cost $2 to travel its entire length. When it first opens, the road is projected to carry 70,000 cars a day and ultimately will carry 170,000 cars a day.