2 Orange County Toll Roads May Raise Fees

Rush-hour drivers may be charged an extra fee on two Orange County toll roads to thin out traffic during peak hours and to help pay off the billion-dollar road projects.

The proposed price increase comes despite findings that the projected traffic levels on the two roads, the Foothill and Eastern Transportation Corridors linking Riverside to south Orange County, next year will be 20% to 25% below initial estimates.

Traffic still is expected to increase in the years ahead, and steeper tolls at rush hour would encourage drivers to travel at a different time, said Colleen Clark of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the public agencies that oversee the tollways.

“If it’s not a problem right now, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a problem in two years or five years,” said Clark, the agencies’ chief financial officer.

Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation, a public policy think tank in Los Angeles, agreed, saying, “It’s a good thing to put that principle in place” now.

A variable toll rate also has been proposed for the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, which runs from Newport Beach to San Juan Capistrano, Clark said. That proposal is under review.

The toll increase would be phased in beginning in 2001, when driving at rush hour would cost an extra 25 cents at the Windy Ridge toll plaza on the Eastern Corridor and the Portola-North Plaza on the Foothill Corridor. The extra tolls would be collected systemwide by 2003, and by 2010, driving at rush hour would cost up to 75 cents more.