Panel Opposes Hiking Fees for Riverside Tollway

An oversight panel for the 91 Express Lanes on Friday recommended eliminating tolls for most three-person carpools and signaled other motorists that it would not support increases any time soon unless they are needed to pay the turnpike’s expenses and debts.

“If we move too quickly to increase tolls, it sends a bad message to those who use the lanes regularly,” said Riverside County Supervisor John Tavaglione, vice chairman of the 91 Express Lanes Advisory Committee.

During peak travel times, the toll is $4.75 one way, among the highest in the nation. It is largely borne by motorists from the Inland Empire who commute to work in Orange County.

The four-lane toll road runs down the center of the Riverside Freeway from northern Anaheim to the Riverside County line along one of the most congested corridors in Southern California.

The panel, comprising government officials from Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties, was established this year after the Orange County Transportation Authority bought the 10-mile tollway from a private company for about $207 million.

Committee members make recommendations to the OCTA board of directors, which is responsible for setting policy related to tolls, financing and capital investments. OCTA acquired the Express Lanes to eliminate a troublesome agreement with the state that barred improvements to the main highway.

If OCTA adopts the committee’s carpool recommendations this month, vehicles with three or more passengers won’t have to pay tolls unless they travel in the eastbound lanes of the Express Lanes between 4 and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Charges for that peak travel time would remain about $2.35 for those carpools.

Eliminating the tolls “was a commitment we made to the public and to the state Legislature when we bought the lanes,” said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), a former Orange County supervisor who worked to end private ownership of the tollway. “This is the reason why we fought so hard to buy the road.”

The carpool recommendation was part of a broader discussion Friday about refinancing the lanes’ debt and adopting a toll policy.

Officials said such a policy is needed to ensure potential investors that the lanes have a reliable source of revenue to cover the road’s debt service.

OCTA is planning to sell $180 million to $200 million in revenue bonds this summer to refinance $135 million in toll road debt at a lower interest rate and pay itself back the money it borrowed from authority programs to buy the tollway.

Officials from Riverside and Orange counties said they want to refrain from any toll increases in the months ahead unless they are absolutely necessary to cover expenses.

They acknowledged, however, that tolls might have to be raised in the future to cover debts, reduce congestion in the lanes and pay for improvements to the Riverside Freeway because state transportation funds are dwindling.

Traffic studies by Vollmer Associates, a consulting firm hired by OCTA, recommend that tolls be raised this year to keep the lanes from becoming overcrowded, a condition that would reduce travel speeds below 55 mph.

There has been talk of increasing the peak one-way charge to $5.75 as a possible solution.

“It is premature for a rate increase,” said Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, an OCTA board member who is on the advisory panel.

“The timing is not right for it. We need to build a stronger case.”

Committee members postponed making a formal recommendation on toll policy to OCTA until some of their concerns about increasing fees are incorporated into the list of possible options.