Off Freeway and Onto Fee Way

For generations, California drivers have taken for granted that state government would guarantee their seeming birthright to free use of a vast highway system.

But Orange County’s experiment with toll roads, where drivers are paying 25 cents to $2.75 for the privilege of driving to and from work, is fueling a new vision of the future.

With hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded highway projects, an increasing chorus of state transportation officials and elected leaders are viewing toll roads as a major part of the next era of highway expansion in the ever-growing state.

“It portends the way things are going to go,” Larry Bowler (R-Elk Grove), a member of the state Assembly Transportation Committee, said of Orange County’s two newest toll roads, the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor and the 91 Express Lanes. (A third toll road, the Foothill Transportation Corridor, is partially open and expected to be completed in 2003.) “People’s minds are being changed by the experience of people in Orange County.”

State Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco), chairman of the upper house’s Transportation Committee, agrees.

“I think there will be more toll roads,” Kopp said, “because toll roads are a solution.”

The problem they solve stems from recent changes in the state’s economy. Historically, new highway construction was financed by state and federal gasoline taxes, the extra pennies per gallon that drivers pay at the pump. In recent years, however, two developments have drastically altered that picture: the price of road construction has skyrocketed while gas tax revenue has decreased significantly.

The dip in revenue began in the 1970s, according to Mehdi Morshed, a consultant for the state Senate Transportation Committee, when severe gas shortages sparked a major national effort to increase fuel efficiency. It succeeded; while cars used to average 10 miles per gallon, many now get at least 22.

“All of a sudden,” Morshed said, “for the same number of miles that people were driving, we were getting half the amount of revenue, while the cost of construction kept rising 8 to 9% a year. Revenues went down and expenditures went up. That’s why we’re in the soup.”

So transportation officials began thinking about paying for new roads by charging people who drive on them. On the national level, the discussion gained new impetus earlier this month with President Clinton’s unveiling of a $175-billion plan for funding the nation’s highways over the next six years. Included in his package is a proposal that states be permitted to charge tolls on interstate highways to fund improvements.

While no one in California is proposing charging tolls on existing freeways, they are talking seriously about building new toll roads--encouraged by the numbers they see.

About 45,000 cars a day now traverse the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, a number that is increasing by about 3% per week.

On the 91 Express Lanes, approximately 26,000 drivers a day are paying between 50 cents and $2.75 to shave 20 minutes off the 10-mile commute along the Riverside Freeway between the northern terminus of the Costa Mesa Freeway and the Riverside County line. California Private Transportation Co., which operates the fully automated toll road, has declined to release growth or revenue figures until a report is issued next month. Late last year, however, the company raised toll rates to thin out the heavy traffic.

“We’re very pleased that it’s caught on as fast as it has,” said Greg Hulsizer, the company’s general manager. “We’re very pleased at the way the motorists have embraced the concept of choice, of being able to choose whether they want to save time by using the toll road or use the general freeway.”

The road’s success has spawned at least two studies of its “congestion pricing,” a system charging higher rates during peak hours to encourage drivers to either carpool (and pay nothing) or drive at different times.

One of the studies, being conducted by the Orange County Transportation Authority, is designed to help officials decide whether to build high-occupancy toll lanes along existing freeways, lanes that are free to car-poolers but cost everyone else a toll.

The other study is being underwritten by Daimler Benz, the German car company that makes Mercedes-Benzes.

“If this concept proves to be working, I would think it’s very likely that it would spread throughout the world,” spokesman Holger Spielberg said. The toll road concept has spread to San Diego County, where a private consortium is developing plans for an 11-mile toll road connecting Otay Mesa near the Mexican border to Route 54 farther north. Transportation officials in nearby Imperial County also are eyeing tolls as one way of funding a new road near Calexico. And other transportation officials throughout the state are stirring interest in Sacramento by considering them.

“I think toll roads are in the future,” said Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), vice chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee. “I think they offer a tremendous compromise to some of our transportation problems, where we have constituents who don’t want to pay higher taxes and yet demand the service of additional highways.”

Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) said toll roads “have certainly gotten the attention of people down here. . . . I think what’s occurred in Orange County has been as a positive success, and it’s only natural that this may be the wave of the future.”

Not everyone is enamored of the idea, however.

State Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), one of the state’s most outspoken critics of toll roads, says that he opposes anything that chips away at the concept of free roads, one of the last things shared equally by rich and poor alike.

“I think they are a polite form of highway robbery,” Lockyer said. “I don’t like special roads being developed for richer people, while ordinary people put up with potholes and congestion.”

And in Orange County, activist Gerard Livernois has helped revive a boycott of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, the 15-mile stretch roughly paralleling the Santa Ana and San Diego Freeways through wilderness areas from San Juan Capistrano to Newport Beach. Like other activists, some of whom chained themselves to bulldozers during construction, Livernois opposes the road on environmental grounds.

“Our goal is to see that this road is unsuccessful and put the construction workers back to work taking it out,” Livernois said. “It’s being used as a national paradigm, the model for a successfully funded toll road. If this one is successful, it will allow others to be built, and we’re in a position to affect that.”

Some critics seem to have made at least a partial peace with the road, however. Elisabeth Brown, a well-known Laguna Beach environmentalist and longtime toll-road opponent, now uses it once a week to drive from her home to Saddleback College in Mission Viejo where she teaches a course.

“I use a part of the road that we didn’t object to because it was built without environmental damage,” explained Brown, who once vowed never to use the toll road at all.

Carol Kelly, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol, said the San Joaquin toll road “has tremendously relieved lots of the traffic problems on the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways. You don’t have to wait as long; your car is moving, as opposed to being at a standstill.”

Some drivers, however, complain about the cost.

“It’s a little pricey,” Patricia Forsgren of San Juan Capistrano said. “If everything is going tollway, I’d like to see a reduction in my taxes.”

Most, however, seem to be gamely accepting the idea of paying tolls as a necessary aspect of their California lifestyles.

“I love it,” Joanna Davitt, a legal secretary from Monarch Beach, said of the toll road she uses almost daily. “It’s expensive, but when you measure that against the frustration of being stuck on the freeway, it’s worth it. It’s cheaper than therapy.”

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The Road Ahead

During the past 15 months, Orange County has opened three toll roads. Both the 91 Express Lanes and the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor have both been deemed successes. In fact, the 91 Expressway has raised fees in hopes of leveling demand. The Foothill Transportation Corridor is open, but some construction continues. Where the roads are and how much it costs to drive on them:

California 91 express lanes toll: 50 cents to $2.75

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Foothill Transportation Corridor toll: 75 cents

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San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor toll: 25 cents to $2

Source: Times reports