Put a Stop to the Toll ‘Experiment’

* Re “Give the Public-Private Toll Road Experiment More Time to Work,” Orange County Voices, Feb. 11:

OCTA Chairman Mike Ward paints a frightening picture of gridlock in 2020 unless Orange County builds more toll roads. He chastises the Sacramento lawmakers and local politicians who question the wisdom of the noncompetition agreements that toll road operators made with Caltrans. These agreements prohibit the improvement or building of roads within five miles of the toll roads and already contributed to gridlock on the Riverside Freeway because Caltrans was prohibited from making necessary lane improvements.

Ward says the toll roads are not economically viable without these monopolistic guarantees. Yet these agreements will restrict traffic flow improvements in Orange County for at least the next 30 years. As a result, instead of being the solution to gridlock problems, the toll roads are likely to be the cause of them.

BILL HOLMES

Dana Point

* Mike Ward ponders that he can only imagine what traffic would look like without our toll roads. One has only to witness the small amount of traffic on most of them to know the answer: It would not look much different.

The transportation agency was not too shrewd in dealing with the Riverside Freeway toll road developers, handing them several miles of graded median and a noncompetition deal. All the operators had to do was lay roadbed, pave it over with asphalt, hook up the FasTrak readers, and they were in business. No wonder a bunch of venture capitalists jumped at the deal. Unfortunately, they underestimated the public’s distaste for the whole concept of pay highways.

The growing number of carpool lanes is another expensive mistake. Although well-intentioned, they are under-utilized and cause traffic jams and accidents as cars attempt rapid multi-lane changes exiting and entering them. They greatly increase the cost of freeway projects too.

On the Riverside Freeway project, we still have only three continuous unrestricted lanes, with an occasional fourth merging lane, and daily traffic jams between the Santa Ana and Orange freeways in both directions, just as before. Has anyone ever gotten less for their money than we have with this project?

PAUL RYAN

Brea

* The only part Ward got right was “The county’s 70-mile tollway network is not flawless.” Everything else in the article is self-contradictory, flawed and just plain erroneous. Although there are freeway traffic problems, there is no evidence to suggest the existing freeway traffic would be worse without the toll roads.

He cites the inadequacy of our freeway system to handle the projected growth of Southern California; a problem only the toll roads can solve. Then he refers to the “noncompetition clauses.” If Caltrans, which is chartered to address our transportation needs, is not allowed to make the improvements necessary to relieve congestion and improve traffic flow because of agreements, do we need their “experiment?”

CALVIN HECHT

San Clemente