Fix 5 First

	Why not just let 'em die?  The meeting with Commerce is "On." The meeting with Commerce is "Off." We don't use tax money. We want Federal loan guarantees.  Tired of all the BS? Why don't we just let 'em die?
	Shadow tolls come creeping out  The latest TCA gambit involves a veiled attempt to raid Federal, State, and/or local treasuries for funding to avoid default. Appropriately they're calling the scam "shadow" tolls. Read about it here.
	Economy squeezes tolls on 241  "The Foothill/Eastern Transportation corridor Agency in Orange County, Calif., is starting to experience year-over-year declines in traffic and revenue numbers."  So opens an article in the May 2 on-line issue of The Bond Trader. The link left takes you to a special 2 week free trial subscription. If they keep us abrest of the decline of TCA, a paid sub might be worth it.
	Spin doesn't equal endorsement  Don't be dismayed by the recent announcement by U.S. Fish & Wildlife's recent Biological Opinion, which TCA is hyping to the max. The issues are just a re-hash of the phoney science in the 241 South EIR.  Short story: USF&W conducted no new studies to reach their conclusions, and the report walks the delicate political line between science and politics. For more, see NEWS.
	O.C.Register readers reject 241S.  Gee, could the Register's on-line readers really be rejecting TCA in their final hour? In a reader poll started Wednesday, April 23, the paper asked simply, "Should the federal government overrule the Coastal Commission and allow completion of the 241 toll road? "  Guess what? By Sunday the 27th, 64% of readers said "No." Wow.
	TCA's board has learned nothing  "Complete lack of situational awareness," is how Wild Heritage Planners' Jack Eidt describes them. And it was on full display at March 13 as board members Jerry Alamante, Chris Norby, Pat Bates, and others repeated a littany of dire bug-a-boos due to 241 South's immanent demise.  We’ve heard it all before. “Eight more lanes on the I-5 which will destroy San Juan and San Clemente.” “Failure to meet air quality standards.” “The I-5 will never be widenend, ever.” Never mind that they contradict one another, what’s scary is how sincerely they believe their own BS. Worse, Bates and Norby are both County Supervisors, and sit on the OC Transportation Authority board. Is it any wonder transportation is screwed up 'round here?
Danielle Regimbal, left, and Lauren Brooks, both of Yorba Linda, head into the Coastal Commission hearing in Del Mar. -- all photos by Don Barletti, -L.A. Times Angela Barker of Oceanside expresses her opposition to the proposed toll road.	Anti-TCA feelings ran high on...the Del Mar Fairground when 3000 people gathered for the California Coastal Commission hearing February 6, where the toll road agency squared off against opponents of the 241 South.  The hubris of TCA's CEO and staff and their bogus mitigation claims hurt the agency's argument, sure. But the mainstream press has failed to note a key element of the commissioners' rejection: the weakness of their claim that the Balancing Provisions of the Coastal Act justified their admitted environmental impacts.  Before your eyes glaze over, here's the punch line: TCA admits 241 would destroy habitat and forever alter the watershed.  But it claimed the Commission had previously approved the 73 toll way because, on balance, it improved access to the Laguna and Corona del Mar beaches and reduced impacts in the coastal zone. It also cited approval of railroad double tracking in north San Diego County and improvement of a bridge in Topanga Canyon as precedent.  These three projects furthered Coastal Act objectives even though they had negative impacts. But their negatives were dwarfed by the effects of 241 South. Further, said a former Commission lawyer, they all addressed evident and growing problems not related to the projects themselves-- in other words, the approved projects helped, on balance.  Impacts of 241 were found by the Commission to be widespread and severe-- exactly as opponents have claimed all along. That's why TCA withdrew its original hearing date last November: they knew they were dead on their original phony-to-the-point-of-insulting mitigation claims. So they went away and came back with three arguments "on balance."  TCA claimed-- and I swear I'm not making this up-- 241's would 1.) improve coastal access and provide lower-cost visitor serving uses, 2.) clean the water in San Mateo Creek and Trestles, and 3.) improve habitat for endangered species along it's route.  Honest to gawd... that's what they claimed.  But the law is the law and thousands of rational human beings had to sit through 12 hours of testimony before the Commissioners dumped TCA on its butt, 8 to 2. The two commissioners who approved TCA's request were Schwarzenegger appointees, and two others who voiced in favor, Caltrans Director, Will Kempton, and California Resource Secretary, Mike Chrisman, mercifully don't vote on the Coastal Commission.  Unmitigated gal is not illegal. TCA has used it for decades to bully Orange County residents, elected officials, and its often cited "collaborative partners." The press fails to discuss it, but California Coastal Commissioners recognized it in Del Mar and ripped TCA a well deserved new one.  Prediction: their new CEO, Tom Margo, will be ousted soon.  Meet TCA CEO Tom Margo. It was almost worth the eighteen hours of my life I gave up attending the meeting to watch this guy dressed down like a school boy in front of Coastal Commissioner Steve Blank.

You kiddin' me? Toll Ways, surrounded by a network of Freeways? Yes, the Toll Roads are a joke, but the laugh's on OC motorists. Here are 4 reasons why.

 Despite their name, the Transportation Corridors Agency is not about transportation. TCA is all about tolls, meeting their bond obligations, and driving their projects through regardless of the consequences.

 The 241 South is typical. Just a way to sell real estate, it was never meant to relieve your commute. But now that it's in jeopardy TCA wants you to believe it's "vital." Here's why it's not.

South Orange County : please refer to the compass, lower left. The red line is the proposed 241extension. Problem: traffic runs east-west, 241 runs north-south.

 The foothill communities, Rancho Santa Margarita, Ladera, Coto, Mission Viejo, and soon-to-be Rancho Mission Viejo are on the right. They pump thousands of commuters west in the morning to Costa Mesa, Irvine, Central OC, and LA. And every night these thousands return east.

 So the traffic which chokes Southern OC is east-west. This flow impacts the 405 and 5 freeways, reducing their level of service to "D" and "F" (failing) on Caltrans' scale. But even if completed the 241 would not address this issue because it runs north and south.

 TCA's insistence to the contrary, the 241 is not an "alternate route" to the I-5. And even if it were, because of TCA's failed toll road business model, it would carry no more than 20% of the traffic of the I-5. How do we know? Let's turn briefly to the 73 for the answer.

The skinny blue lines are the toll roads. Click the map to download the PDF. You'll be able to zoom in and compare traffic volumes along each route.

 Unlike the 241, the 73 is a valid alternate route to a freeway: the 405. OCTA Traffic Flow maps show that, despite holding the city of Aliso Viejo captive, the 73 toll road carries only 12% to 20% of the traffic as the 405. Even though for many drivers the 73 is shorter. Even though Aliso Viejo is deprived of alternatives by TCA's Non Competition Agreements.

 If one lane each way were added to the 405, it could accommodate virtually all of 73's daily traffic.

 Had OC's "leaders" stepped up in the 80s, we would have had the 405 we deserved. Aliso Viejo could have been adequately served with a modern 6 lane East/West arterial instead of punching a destructive superhighway through the Laguna Coastal Conservancy.

 The 73 is the most used of TCA's routes. Amazing, considering the crush of Inland Empire commuters to Costa Mesa and Santa Ana. If any group were motivated to pay TCA tolls it should be the motorists mired daily on the 91. But the 241/261 straight shot to Irvine carries fewer cars than the 73. The daily $8 round-tip toll keeps drivers away. Toggle back to your OCTA Traffic Flow map and check the numbers yourself.

 Now consider again that the 241 is not a freeway alternative, that all paving the last 16 miles of 241 would do is link San Onofre with the 91. Why would anyone claim that the 241 South is needed, or will be financially successful, or will do anything to alleviate congestion in South Orange County?

 One answer: The TCA board members and the county politicos who support them— "staunch Republicans" all— cannot man up and admit their failure. They are compelled by hubris and personal interest to pay more PR personnel to throw more BS at the public, light more freeway billboards, and send Congressmen Ken Calvert off to Washington for $120-million in Federal loan guarantees, all to keep the toll road scam going. How did this road building scheme turn into the scam it is today? Here’s how.

 The 241 was just a doodle on a Caltrans map in the 70s. Caltrans used to doodle a lot back then because our state was growing rapidly and they had the mandate to serve the motoring public. The car was our overwhelming choice for personal transportation, but more important it was the engine of our economy: cars facilitated quick suburban development.

 OC political leaders grew frustrated by Jerry Brown's era of limitations in the 70's and in '78 Proposition 13 put the binders on property tax revenue just when they and their backers were set to crank up more $-billion real estate deals: Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Aliso Viejo, Ladera Ranch, "back country" San Clemente, and ultimately Rancho Mission Viejo. No surprise, these are South Orange County developments and TCA is a South OC agency.

 "Privatization" was a hip term in the 80s. It was the Regan era. Government is an inconsistent provider of public services, depending as it does on political agendas of those currently in power. Instead of building the roads themselves, developers caucused with their buddies, city and county elected officials. Rather than step up, deal with the issues in Sacramento, and scrap for the transportation money the developers needed, OC's politicos decided to end-run Caltrans by forming the TCA.

 Remember the political climate of the 80s: county voters distrusted government but demanded high levels of service. OC's Board of Supervisors embraced innovative financial models and encouraged creative thinking, an attitude which led to our infamous '94 bankruptcy. But in '87 TCA's two corridor boards ran with the ball. So blasé were they about fiscal responsibility, so ignorant of the free market, they created a toll road business model which has since blatantly and publicly fizzled.

 Until the TCA no such road building effort had been made in the state's history. As such TCA and its business model were experiments. I argue the experiments have failed.

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 In traffic-choked OC how could any new road hurt? If it usurps public right of way, and prevents improvement to other roads, it hurts.

 TCA adds another highway agency to a state and county already heavy with bureaucracy. In its 20 year existence TCA has done nothing original, save one: sold private highway bonds with unrealistic (fraudulent?) claims of return. It's routes are Caltrans'. It's finished roads are turned over to Caltrans the instant they're opened. It subcontracts toll collection (for which it pays the foreign contractor).

 Worst of all, it meddles in road improvements at every level of government.

 TCA speciously claims their 1993 Non-Competition Agreement does not prevent any agency from building needed roads. But he Non-Compete basically deputizes Caltrans to discourage any discussion of new or improved routes parallel to any of TCA's roads if they would decrease TCA tolls. These terms do a lot more than make TCA "whole" by compensating for lost toll revenue. They make taxpayers liable for those tolls, effectively raising the cost of any project.

 Click here to read the Non-Competition clauses for yourself. The "Project" they reference is the 241. This agreement has never been tested in court.

 So we pay for the toll roads three times. Once with taxes to maintain, patrol, and improve them, again should we choose to drive on them, a third time should we build an alternative.

 Now consider what the cost of the tolls do to a motorist's budget with this lesson in Free Market Commuting, 101:

 TCA doubles the cost of a daily commute for thousands of drivers. No wonder, according to a 2005 OCTA survey, 71% of OC drivers never use them. Of those who do, 41% take them only one day per week, and fewer than 10% of all toll way patrons drive them 5 days a week. As a transportation solution the roads are a flop.

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 We’d gain 51 miles of instant freeway.

 Sure, thousands of TCA’s loyal, well-off, patrons will howl, “Riff-raff is slowing down my commute.” But five times those thousands will enjoy immediately faster commutes, especially on the 405 as traffic on the 73 doubles. Remember, removing 20% of the cars from the 405 is equal to adding a lane in each direction from Alton Parkway to Bristol St.

 Thousands more citizens on the 91 will breath easier as traffic on the 241/ 261 probably doubles, too. Diverting commuters from the 91 and 55 freeways between Green River and the I-5 will instantly improve the drive on two of OC’s most nightmarish roads.

What if we don't improve the I-5 and let TCA keep the toll ways? Above left is OCTA's congestion graphic for 2005. Above right is the projection for 2030. Note the least used roads continue to be the toll ways, while arterials and freeways are even more congested than today.

 Everyone agrees: Doing nothing is not an option. But what's the best solution?

 Municipal highway bonds were a good investment in the past. They financed roads and freeways which provide prosperity we expect today. When it comes to needed infrastructure, hand wringing about “passing debt to future generations” is a hollow gesture— especially from the hypocrites we’ve sent to Sacramento and D.C.

 TCA claims they conducted “research” in 2005 while Measure M was being drafted which “proved” Orange County voters didn’t want to bail out their bond debt. But we were never told that by increasing Measure M by only 30% we could retire the bonds.

 TCA's bond debt rises every year, but in 2006 the payout would have been about $4-billion. That 51 miles would have cost $78-million per mile, a relative steal for that much "instant freeway."

 OCTA's Measure M efforts have been great for county drivers, but for all the good OCTA has done, that agency is also beholding to TCA’s political supporters. Nowhere in all of OCTA’s surveys, nor with all the money it spent promoting Measure M renewal, was it allowed promote the benefit of creating 51 miles of instant freeway.

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 All Southern California freeways are dysfunctional because state legislators have raided highway funds for decades to cover out-of-control state spending. As taxpayers and citizens, that’s our fault— we’ve ignored the problems and let “professional” politicians play partisan games.

 But when the freeways stop, people pay attention.

 The I-5 is an international super highway, essential to trade, defense, public safety, and the day-to-day business of living. And the oldest original section of the I-5 runs through San Clemente.

 It is inevitable that it will be widened, probably by several lanes, within the next few decades. And, again contrary to TCA claims, the current footprint through San Clemente is wide enough to add 4 lanes— two in each direction— without taking any homes. (How does TCA make their dire claims? They use design standards that postulate cloverleaf interchanges typical of superhighway construction in open country, not the negotiated standards more typical of improvements in dense urban areas.)

 The current planning horizon used by OCTA and Caltrans is 2030, essentially 20 years from now. Anyone who plans to be living in South OC as that date approaches has a huge stake in when and how the I-5 will be improved.

 But the discussion has been postponed by the hoopla, spurious claims, and wrangling over the TCA’s experimental toll roads. TCA’s agenda has always been to complete the 241 before any other project could be discussed, and OCTA has gone along.

 In San Clemente this delay is more troubling because of our topography. Our ocean bluffs are a natural choke point. The railroad runs on California beach in two places only— here and through Del Mar. The same challenges that faced the railroads in 1885 face Caltrans today.

 The pressure to dramatically upgrade the I-5 is building. NAFTA truck traffic is increasing fast. North San Diego County continues to grow and the effect on weekend traffic is already obvious. Weekday commuting increases steadily.

 Caltrans has looked at the I-5 as a possible rail alignment. When California High Speed Rail was considering the LA/San Diego (LOSSAN) Corridor as a possible supplemental route, tunnels under the I-5 for both passenger and freight were among the most likely alternatives. The benefit would have included “getting the tracks off the beach.” (For the record, CHSR abandoned the LOSSAN in its final plan because of cost; the supplemental OC service will now stop at Anaheim. Even 21st Century railroads can’t easily deal with San Clemente’s bluffs.)

 If we’re proactive, have a vision and a plan for the I-5, San Clemente can use the pressure to Fix the 5 and improve the town, too. Certainly, the congestion we experience almost 24/7 is not the fault of local townsfolk. But we can’t stand in front of the bulldozers nor expect the 5 to remain eight lanes permanently.

 Orange County is no longer rural; our densities are suburban and urban. Our freeways and arterials are the only viable corridors left for all transportation modes. How that vision is manifest here should be our focus today, not a debate over a useless toll road promoted by a bankrupt bureaucracy.

Questions, comments, observations? Mail 'em here.

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