San Joaquin Hills Officials May Hike Toll to $2.25

Discount weekend prices on the San Joaquin Hills toll road failed to lure the hoped-for droves of drivers, so corridor officials are now mulling over a 25-cent toll hike to keep the privately funded project on track to meet its debts.

A key committee of the Transportation Corridor Agencies will meet this week to consider the price increase--which would put the maximum toll at $2.25--and the agency’s board may make a decision next week, officials said.

The toll corridor lags 10% behind ridership projections established in 1997 and a full 25% off projections offered at the project’s genesis in 1993. A toll hike is needed now to keep revenues on pace to pay off bonds in the decades to come, according to a recent staff report.

Toll road officials had hoped that three recent weekends of discounted tolls, offered under a program sponsored by The Times Orange County Edition, would boost the number of drivers using the road--and Saturday and Sunday drivers did increase by 14% under the $1 toll promotion. But that extra business fell short of the levels needed to embrace the weekend rates as a permanent customer incentive, a staff report states.

With the variable pricing plan failing to prove it could work and boost ridership, the tollway leaders now find themselves facing the prospect of raising prices at the same time they are hunting for new commuters.

Irvine Major Christina L. Shea, a member of the toll road agencies’ committee reviewing the proposal this Thursday, said she was disappointed to see ridership totals fall short of expectations--and she said she worries that the toll hike might make future growth even harder. She said public support of the tollway remains “tenuous.”

“It’s a Catch-22,” Shea said. “You want to encourage people to use the toll road, but you have to be financially sound. And if you raise the toll you’re going to lose riders. It’s a quandary. I’m not a real strong supporter of this increase.”

Shea said she would prefer to keep the toll at $2 during a major marketing push in upcoming months to advertise the toll road as a way to dodge traffic on Interstate 5 while driving between Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano.

Still, Shea said she and others on the committee would probably approve the recommended hike to keep the project on track to pay its debt. “I think it should always be the last resort, but the bottom line is you have to do the responsible thing,” she said.

The toll road was initially projected to have 97,000 daily riders, but agency officials revamped their goals when they refinanced the project in 1997. The weekday ridership in June averaged 74,489, while weekend totals during the $1-toll promotion hovered between 50,000 and 55,000, according to agencies spokeswoman Michelle Sperl-Miller.

Although the numbers appear disappointing compared to the project’s initial projections, spokesman Paul Glaab said the roadway is doing “extremely well,” and he pointed out that June totals showed a 34% increase over ridership from the same month in 1997.

If approved by the board, the new prices could go into effect as soon as Aug. 15, although Sept. 15 is a more likely target date to allow more notice to commuters, Glaab said.

The 25 cents would be tacked on to the $2 that drivers pay when they pass through the Mainline Plaza, the central pay point used by more than 70% of the drivers on the tollway, according to Sperl-Miller.

Drivers who use only a portion of the 15-mile tollway and exit before reaching the Mainline Plaza would not see their tolls--50 cents, 75 cents or $1--affected by the proposed hike.

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Ridership lags

Ridership on the San Joaquin Hills toll road continues to lag behind projections, but officials say more drivers are using the road each month. The average number of weekday transactions at toll booths--some drivers pay at more than one booth--for five months this year:

February: 65,111

March: 65,286

April: 69,300

May: 72,812

June: 74,489

Source: Transportation Corridor Agencies