Toll Road Hearing Report

Toll Road Hearing Report
by Dale Tyler

I attended and spoke at the Sept. 22, 2008, hearing on the 241 toll road extension held at Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego County. When I arrived at about 2:30 p.m., there appeared to be around 1,200 people in attendance. All of the elected officials had already made their speeches, including 18 representatives of the TCA.

Within each group (elected officials, representatives of organizations and the general public) the order of the speakers was chosen by random lot. I heard a mixture of speakers who supported the toll road extension and those who were against the extension. Among the organizational speakers, there were two anti-toll road speakers for every one speaking for the pro-toll road side. When the individuals started speaking around 6:45 p.m., the ratio became even more lopsided, with four or five against the toll road vs. one for the road.

I was the third to last organizational speaker (No. 132). The text of my speech is shown below. Although the toll road proponents seemed as though they were given “talking points” with little to no originality, the anti-toll road speakers presented a wide array of interesting arguments, including the encroachment on Native American lands, the ineffectiveness of the endangered species mitigation and the permissible reasons that the Coastal Commission's ruling might be overturned. The last was especially interesting, as it seems like none of the appeal criteria could be met. For example, it seems unlikely that the extension of the 241 could be considered a matter of national security. Likewise, the toll road extension is not the only alternative for improving mobility in southern Orange County.

Overall, it seemed to me that the anti-toll road speakers carried the day. The Secretary of Commerce will decide whether or not to overturn the Coastal Commission's denial of the TCA's proposal to extend the 241 sometime early next year.

Full text of my speech:

Good evening. I want to thank the Secretary of Commerce and NOAA for holding this hearing and for giving careful consideration to the various views expressed here today.

My name is Dale Tyler, and I represent Drivers for Highway Safety, a group of engineers who have been involved in Orange County transportation issues for nearly 20 years. DHS members are on a number of OCTA working groups and are quite aware of the long-range transportation planning being done for the southern portion of Orange County. Of particular interest is the planning being done to build a new east-west connector (called Cow Camp Road) from the area of the 14,000 approved homes in Rancho Mission Viejo westward to the I-5. This new roadway is the critical piece of infrastructure needed to reduce congestion in inland Orange County and will provide an alternate connection to the 241 from the I-5.

We have studied the issues surrounding the extension of the 241 South and feel that while there is some merit in extending the 241 to Ortega Highway, that extension should not continue to the I-5. The reasons for this position are a combination of technical and economic factors.

Let's take the technical issue first. The portion of the 241 extending from Ortega/Cow Camp to the I-5 at San Onofre (known as 241 Far South) is likely to be very lightly used, especially compared to the I-5 and the northern portion of the 241. The vast majority of trips on limited access highways, especially toll roads, are longer trips, so we will focus on those.

First, take the case of Northbound I-5 traffic from San Diego County. While a few drivers want to travel to inland Orange County, most want to go to Irvine and destinations further north. Virtually no one will use I-5/241 to get to Riverside, as the I-15 is a more direct route.

Next consider the likely work destinations of the residents of southern Ladera Ranch, Rancho Mission Viejo and northern San Juan Capistrano. Trip endpoint studies and maps show that a small minority of these residents will want to go south into San Diego County. The vast majority will travel north to their jobs, with most jobs located near the I-5/I-405 in central Orange County and Los Angeles County. Some will work in Lake Forest and other inland portions of Orange County, and these trips will be served by the 241 north of Ortega/Cow Camp.

Finally, consider the relatively low number of trips going south to San Diego on the 241 from inland Orange County. Instead of taking the 241 Far South extension to I-5, they would use Ortega/Cow Camp road to connect to I-5 and then travel south.

From these examples, it is easy to see that the 241 Far South extension is barely useful from a transportation point of view. It does little to satisfy the critical needs of commuters. What little transportation work it does accomplish can be done just as well by the planned extension of La Pata and other North-South arterials in San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.

There are also economic problems associated with extending the 241 to the I-5.

The worst of these revolves around the non-compete agreement between Caltrans and the TCA. We all remember the debacle caused by the CA-91 toll lanes' non-compete agreement. Traffic literally ground to a halt on the non-toll portions of CA-91 that paralleled the toll lanes because the non-compete agreement prohibited any improvements that would take traffic away from the toll lanes. The situation got so bad that the OCTA was forced to buy the toll lanes at a cost of $200 million, giving the developer a nearly $100-million profit. The same situation would occur here. By preventing the widening of the I-5 as planned, the 241 will actually worsen traffic to such a degree that OCTA will have to pay the TCA millions of dollars to do what it could have done at no extra cost if the 241 extension was not built.

The second problem is the promise that the 241 would become the property of the people of California when the bonds used to finance the toll road's construction were paid off in 2041. Allowing the extension of the 241, especially the expensive-to-build and lightly used 241 Far South extension will place this promise in jeopardy. The TCA might be able to gain enough increased traffic on the section north of Ortega to offset its construction costs by 2041, but if the 241 Far South costs are added in, there is no way for them to fulfill their promise.

We urge you deny the TCA's appeal.

Thank you.