OCTA to Pay Tollway for Right to Add Freeway Lanes

For the second time in recent months, Orange County transportation leaders have agreed to pay a toll road operator for the right to improve a public freeway.

The payment--potentially $40,000 a year--would compensate operators of the San Joaquin Hills tollway for any customers it might lose if a major bottleneck along the San Diego Freeway is eliminated.

The push to relieve severe congestion at Jeffrey Road in Irvine on the San Diego Freeway is one of 12 freeway choke points that the Orange County Transportation Authority hopes to fix in $123-million improvement efforts.

The San Joaquin Hills tollway is covered by an agreement that requires public highway projects to compensate it under certain circumstances for any loss of business.

OCTA officials had feared that eight of 12 pending choke-point projects along the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways might be subject to the requirement. But negotiations with the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the tollway’s operator, eliminated all the proposals except one.

“For $40,000 we avoided a lawsuit to stop the bottleneck project,” said Supervisor Todd Spitzer, chairman of the OCTA board.

The San Joaquin Hills tollway, which runs from Newport Beach to San Juan Capistrano, is part of a 51-mile network of turnpikes operated by the Irvine-based agencies. The others are the Foothill, the Eastern, and a short stretch of Highway California 133 (Laguna Freeway).

All the routes are covered by protection agreements that require public highway projects within five miles of the toll roads to reimburse for losses of motorists if the agency cannot pay the interest on its bonds.

Such noncompetition clauses have become controversial in Orange County, especially the pact between Caltrans and the California Private Transportation Co., which operates the 91 Express Lanes on the Riverside Freeway. The private lanes run along the middle of the freeway.

Critics say the Express Lanes deal can stand in the way of any major improvements to the Riverside Freeway, one of the most congested highways in Southern California.

Recently, OCTA agreed to pay $4million to California Private Transportation just to add a 1,000-yard westbound access lane.

Toll officials say their noncompetition agreements are more flexible than the Express Lanes’ pact and allow competing projects to proceed as long as they pay the toll agency for losses.

Of the choke-point projects, the toll agency concluded that a lane addition on the northbound side of the San Diego Freeway between Sand Canyon Avenue and Jeffrey Road might decrease traffic by about 60 motorists a day, a tiny fraction of the 80,000 trips made daily on the tollway. The agreement requires OCTA to compensate the agency for the loss of tolls if it cannot meet its debt payments and if a decrease in motorists occurs on the 16-mile toll road through west Orange County. The tollway board is expected to approve the deal Thursday.

“We came to an agreement that will improve traffic and protect our bondholders,” said Clare Climaco, a Transportation Corridor Agencies spokeswoman. “The noncompetition clause doesn’t stop improvement projects from happening.”

Monday’s action is part of an effort by OCTA to remove 12 bottlenecks on the Santa Ana, San Diego, Riverside and the Garden Grove freeways. Ultimately, the authority wants to eliminate 30 choke points it has identified.

In addition to the tollway compensation plan, OCTA approved $8.3million for preliminary design, engineering and environmental assessments for five of the 12 projects. The proposals include ramp widenings and new lanes.

The five choke points are on the southbound Interstate 5 at Culver Drive in Irvine, Oso Parkway in Mission Viejo, Camino Capistrano in San Juan Capistrano, and Avenida Pico in San Clemente.