Toll Road Shortfall Blamed on Recession

Much of a major revenue shortfall from projections for the San Joaquin Hills toll road can be blamed on the greater-than-anticipated effect of California’s recession, a consultant told the toll road’s operations committee on Tuesday.

“The effect was to push everything back,” said Edward J. Regan, a representative of Wilbur Smith Associates, which made the inflated projections in 1992.

Three months ago, officials reported revenue was 51% below projections on the toll road, which runs from Newport Beach to Laguna Niguel.

They said, however, the shortfall was likely to disappear before March 1999, when the Transportation Corridor Agencies must begin making payments on the $1.2 billion in municipal bonds it sold to pay for the project.

TCA officials said Tuesday, that while use of the toll road has increased by about 4.8% per month to an average of 53,650 cars a day, that figure is still 46% under the 1992 projections.

“It’s not a good picture but it’s a picture that’s improving.” Regan said.

Not everyone was impressed.

George Gallagher, an Irvine planning commissioner and longtime opponent of the toll road, argued that the company had access to the information necessary to make accurate projections in 1992.

“They blew it,” he said. “Wilbur Smith Associates just didn’t do a good job.”

In addition to the impact of the economy, Regan blamed the toll road’s disappointing performance on improvements to competing freeways, a longer-than-expected period for drivers to get used to the new road, inadequate signs marking its entrances and exits and low awareness of the road among motorists living outside Orange County.

All of these problems were being addressed, committee members said.