Legislation Would Buy Toll Lanes

A state legislator from Riverside County plans to introduce a bill to use some of the estimated $5 billion state surplus to buy the 91 Express Lanes and immediately begin safety improvements.

State Assemblyman Rod Pacheco (R-Riverside) was reacting to accounts, first raised in The Times, about how Caltrans abandoned safety improvements along the Riverside Freeway after the owner of the toll lanes, the California Private Transportation Co., sued the agency. The company argued that the improvements would have damaged its business by discouraging motorists from using the toll lanes, called the 91 Express Lanes.

Scrapping the repairs has endangered motorists who use the congested corridor, Pacheco said.

“That is unconscionable, at the very least, to put traffic and the public in such a dangerous situation,” said Pacheco, who serves on the Assembly’s budget committee. “This doesn’t just damage people’s psyche, it leads to more accidents and even fatalities.”

Legislators in 1989 should never have agreed to forsake road improvements to protect the profits of toll lane operators, Pacheco said. That agreement, he said, compromised the state’s ability to make repairs on the Riverside Freeway.

“The more congestion there is, the more people will want to use the toll road, which means that this private company will make more money,” Pacheco said. “The Legislature, at the time, should never have entered into this agreement.”

The only way to free the state from its promise is to buy back the franchise the state granted eight years ago, he said.

“Then we will be able to make all of the improvements that Caltrans wants, both to improve safety and reduce congestion,” Pacheco said.

Greg Hulsizer, the toll lanes general manager, did not return calls seeking comment. His public relations manager, Frank Wilson, said the group was unaware of any proposed legislation to buy out the company.

Meanwhile, Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster, a longtime critic of the 91 Express Lanes project, said his county’s transportation commission members and attorneys may have found new ammunition to shoot down the toll lanes.

Buster alleged that Caltrans has been selectively enforcing provisions of the franchise agreement, sacrificing safety and “conspiring” to assist the toll lanes’ operator to entice more drivers into the pay lanes.

For example, he said, Caltrans has allowed a Riverside County carpool lane--paid for by county taxpayers--to be used by single-occupant vehicles heading onto the 91 Express Lanes.

“They are using our turf and the [carpool lane] we paid for and widened with our half-cent sales tax to help the toll lanes,” Buster said. “It’s consistent that the higher echelons of Caltrans roll over and give the toll lanes what they want.”

In a letter written by a Caltrans attorney to Riverside County transportation officials, the state agency admitted the carpool lanes between the Corona Expressway and the start of the 91 Express Lanes, at the border of the two counties, were not being used strictly according to the agency’s agreements.

However, Caltrans attorney William Bassett said in the letter that strict compliance would have “created unsafe traffic conditions” by shortening the space motorists had to move between the freeway and the toll lanes.

Riverside County officials say they are still considering suing Caltrans to overturn the franchise agreement for the lanes, or at the very least block attempts to sell the lanes to another private operator.

Pacheco said having the state buy the lanes would solve the problem, but he might not propose lifting the tolls after that.

If the state continued to charge tolls, then “that money should go into instantly making improvements and easing congestion on the 91,” Pacheco said. “The Legislature and the governor will have to make that policy decision.”

State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) called Pacheco’s proposal one option in solving what he calls “an inherent unresolvable conflict of interest in operating private toll lanes next to a public freeway.”

Dunn, however, said he had concerns about how such a purchase would be structured.