Non-compete Agreement Not Needed for 241 Toll Road Extension
by Dale Tyler

The OCTA is holding a series of meetings where various stakeholders attend group presentations and discussions about transportation planning through 2030. A meeting was held Jan. 24 regarding the South Orange County Major Investment Study. This covers the area south of SR-55 to the San Diego County border.

Various transportation plans were discussed, including more freeway lanes, more bus routes, more frequent trains and toll road expansion. Combinations of alternatives were presented with an eye toward seeing which mix might work best.

One of the things that piqued my interest was the discussion about the extension of the 241 to I-5 and the non-compete agreement that was being proposed by the TCA. It seems that we should learn from the debacle that SR-91 toll lanes inflicted on the users of the adjoining section of freeway. Although the non-compete agreement with the toll lanes may have seemed innocuous at the beginning, congestion became so severe that OCTA was forced to buy the toll road from its operator, mostly to permit expansion of nearby road capacity.

Now it appears we are doing the same thing again with the extension of the 241. Who knows what may happen over the next 30 years as the southern part of Orange County and the northern part of San Diego County expand? I would expect the unexpected and realize that roads that will compete for traffic with the 241 will have to be built, resulting in payments to the TCA for the loss of that traffic, making those roads even more costly to develop.

To that end, we strongly urge the OCTA to not enter into a non-compete agreement with the TCA for the area covered by the proposed extension. If they can finance and build the road without a non-compete agreement, so much the better. However, if they cannot do so, then OCTA should consider building the extension itself using Measure M funds. That way, the capacity would be there and could be freely expanded as future, unplanned demand becomes evident. Another benefit to the OCTA building the extension would be that we could look at other alignments that might better serve the needs of Orange County than the currently proposed route that would mostly benefit San Diego County drivers because of the far-south nature of the 241/I-5 connection.

Also, by not agreeing to the non-compete payments, the OCTA will be keeping true to the spirit of Measure M that was passed by voters with the intention of money being spent on free roads, not in subsidizing toll roads used by a few. Toll roads are fine, as long as the users of those roads pay the entire cost of construction and operation. The 241 is a moneymaker in its current configuration and needs no financial help. If the OCTA built a connection between the I-5 and the 241, then the 241 operators would make money and the users of the roads would have more choices. Undeterred by tolls, more people would choose to use the free 241 extension and thus offload traffic from I-5.

One of the other areas the OCTA should address is that all proposed projects be evaluated to determine the subsidized cost per passenger mile and this information be made a part of the process used to rank projects by their cost-effectiveness. By doing this, we can ensure that the money entrusted to OCTA will be used to benefit the largest number of users. For example, it appears that light rail is about 100 times more expensive per passenger mile than private automobiles. While subsidized cost is not the only metric that should be used to evaluate if we should do something, I feel that it is one of the most important.