Laguna Beach to Put Toll Road on the Map

For many who live in Laguna Beach, the San Joaquin Hills toll road cuts through not only the city’s sensitive canyons, but its spirit--which may explain why defiant local leaders have never added the 3-year-old corridor to the city’s official planning maps.

That may change soon.

With an eye toward tapping into money for transportation improvements, city leaders are begrudgingly putting into motion plans to add the thoroughfare to their official plats, a move that would end years of rebelling against--and, later, officially ignoring--the controversial roadway.

“The toll road issue has just been some sort of political statement we’ve made over the years, but there’s really no sense in not taking care of it now,” said Laguna Beach Councilman Wayne J. Baglin. “If that’s all that’s between us and getting transportation funds, then I’d definitely be supportive of putting it on the map.”

The crux of the issue is the decades-old “Master Plan of Arterial Highways,” a countywide blueprint for future road projects kept by the Orange County Transportation Authority. That countywide plan shows both the toll road and an extension of Aliso Creek Road, but neither of those roads appear on the Laguna Beach official map.

Laguna Beach’s noncompliance has made the city ineligible to compete for transportation improvements money that could be used for local highway work, but local leaders say other funding sources have made that a moot point.

“This is kind of a nonissue, really,” said Terry Brandt, Laguna Beach director of municipal services. “There was nothing we really needed to do that would be covered under by that money.”

Still, when a new traffic study showed the Aliso Creek Road extension--which would span the wild lands area between Laguna Canyon Road and El Toro Road--might be unneeded and possibly deleted from the county plan, Laguna Beach leaders began to rethink their omission of the toll road from their own maps.

If the protest gesture becomes the only reason the city could not compete for new funds, perhaps it is time to acknowledge the city’s long war against the environmentally controversial road is an old, lost battle, Baglin said. Still, he said, some in the community will not be happy.

“A lot of people take pride in the fact that they have not driven it yet,” Baglin said. “I drive it three to four times a week and it makes a big difference for me . . . but for them they still wear it as sort of a badge. That won’t change.”

Laguna Beach is the only Orange County city ever to flout the Master Plan of Arterial Highways, a nod to the controversy over the toll road’s impact on fragile ecosystems and the city’s tradition of fierce independence.

Dave Elbaum, planning director for the Orange County Transportation Authority, said when the countywide plan and a city’s local goals come in conflict, a middle ground can often be found. In the case of Laguna Beach, the toll road was built despite loud protests from city leaders.

“This was something that was so important to them that they didn’t want to compromise, and that’s clearly their decision,” Elbaum said.

It’s a decision that may face leaders in other cities. Costa Mesa, Orange and Yorba Linda are marshaling their forces to fight controversial highway projects in each of their cities, and in each, Laguna Beach has been cited as a possible role model.

“It’s come up as a reference of what can happen,” Yorba Linda Mayor Gene Wisner said Friday. “We could find ourselves in the same boat as them.”

In Yorba Linda, a proposal to widen Imperial Highway has local leaders and voters wrangling with what is best for the city versus the need to plan for regional traffic congestion. One scenario would have the city dig in its heels, fight the project and sacrifice transportation funds by flouting the county master map.

For Yorba Linda, though, flouting the master plan would have a steeper price because the North County city has far more major highway mileage and intersections than Laguna Beach. Indeed, Laguna Beach officials say ignoring the county’s master plan has cost them little if anything.

The city spends about $600,000 a year for local road rehabilitation and maintenance, a total that covers its needs, Brandt said. Also, two of the city’s three highways--Pacific Coast Highway and Laguna Canyon Road--are maintained and controlled by the state, so no city money is needed for their upkeep or improvement, Brandt said.

Still, every other city in the county can compete for more than $25 million generated each year for road improvements by Measure M, a half-cent sales tax approved in 1990 to fund transportation improvements. That money goes into projects ranging from bus stop improvements to road rehabilitation to traffic signal refinements.

In August, for example, OCTA pumped $22.4 million in matching funds into 100 road rehabilitation projects spread across highways in every Orange County city--every city, that is, except Laguna Beach.

Brandt said the city had no project on deck that would have been a candidate for those matching funds, and he points out that the beach city, like every other local city, also gets a separate, annual Measure M payment. That money is not affected by the noncompliance issue, and this year totaled $246,000.

If the city does come in compliance with the master highway plan, it is likely that leaders would make a bid for the competitive process money to find extra money to help repair and improve El Toro Road, Brandt said.