No Accounting for Toll Roads

* I have been reading lately about how the San Joaquin Hills toll road is considering changing the rate structure in order to attract more usage.

As homeowners in Aliso Viejo, we pay an additional Mello-Roos tax. Some of those tax dollars go to funding the construction of that road. We do benefit from the road, but our neighbors that live in cities south of us benefit from it even more, and most of them do not pay additional tax dollars for it.

The current rate structure is very unfair. Aliso Viejo is located right in the middle of the toll road’s path. In order to drive from El Toro Road to Newport Beach, the toll is $2, which is the same toll that residents in San Juan Capistrano pay to use the entire length of the road.

It appears to me that we are unfairly paying for this road twice, once through our Mello-Roos tax and then again every time we use it. We don’t even get a break on the toll based on the length of our trip.

My suggestions apply to regular toll road users who have transponders: Give Aliso Viejo homeowners a discount on their toll. This could be easily done on our monthly transponder bills.

And monitor where we enter the toll road and where we exit and develop a toll that fairly represents the actual road usage.

MARILYN GREEN

Aliso Viejo

* I read with dismay the Sept. 28 article “Toll Roads Pave Way for South County Development,” and primarily its attempt to justify toll roads because of the public good they do. Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita were built long before toll roads were on the board.

If we follow the logic in the article, which is a blatant public relations attempt to throw toll roads down our throats, much of Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties would be undeveloped because they are not blessed with FasTrak and quarter machines to feed the greedy transportation gurus now in control.

I sometimes think Orange County must have hired some expert from Connecticut to advise us on proper road construction techniques, because back there they know how to extract your quarters with zeal. However, to their credit, they do have something known as “alternate transportation.”

It would make my day if I could see The Times get on the side of the little guy that has already paid for adequate roads with taxes too numerous to mention.

Who knows, if you think about it, you might just start a trend, away from additional taxes for every sneeze and cough that politicians dream up.

CHARLES MYLES

Huntington Beach