July 3: The Cat's Outt'a da' Bag  

SHADOW TOLLS CREEPING OUT

 Last month Orange County Transportation Authority staff began a series of appearances before OC city councils presenting the "Locally Preferred Alternative for South County's Major Investment Study Area." The major investment they're talking about is the upgrade to streets, arterials, and freeways in the area from the 55 freeway south to the San Diego County line. A .pdf of the project's progress to date is available here. Funding for the upgrades will come primarily from the renewal of Measure M, that extra half-cent of sales tax we all pay in Orange County.

 And included in the plan is tax subsidy of the TCA.  Yes, like we told you last year, the political might of the Transportation Corridors Agency knows few bounds around here. And they have no shame. So despite trumpeting how they're a private entity which uses no public funding to construct their roads, and blah, blah, blah, they've not only inserted themselves into the Measure M planning process, they've devised a new term, "shadow tolls," to help save their sorry financial butts.

What would we get if this plan is adopted?

 First, we'd get lower tolls; 50% is the discount currently tossed around. And, to address the congestion these lower tolls would cause, TCA will add lanes to their roads. That's right, not only will your tax money subsidize a failing agency, you'll be adding lanes to their system.

What exactly are Shadow Tolls?

 The implication is that every time you'd pay the toll some generous entity would match it with money from heaven. But where does the money come from? Well, OCTA pretends it doesn't know. What they're suggesting— at TCA's behest— is adoption of a plan that has no stated funding source, though it's clear to any thinking citizen that the source is your pocketbook. It's just taxes with a goofy name, one which sounds like it was made up by a desperate low level PR flak. But that’s what they think of your intelligence.
 

What's the claimed benefit?

 Through lengthy process of traffic modeling and cost/benefit analysis, OCTA purports to show that regional traffic will be reduced, and service levels improved. It's science. It's engineering. And it's almost certainly jiggered.

 OCTA is the agency which has steadfastly refused to allow modeling of any plans in south county without  completion of the 241. Even though it is increasingly likely that the road will not be built, the OCTA Board won't allow it. Period. Through the years OCTA and TCA boards have shared many members, their politics are clear, their loyalties not surprising. So this bit of blatantly bad management can be chalked up to politics.

Why TCA needs the money

 As detailed elsewhere on this site, the toll roads have failed, both practically and financially.

 TCA's roads comprise over half the superhighway miles in South Orange County. But even before the meteoric rise in gas prices, they attracted fewer than 1 in 5 drivers in and through the region. Why? Because the basic model— toll ways surrounded by freeways— is ridiculous. While there are thousands of loyal TCA patrons, over five times their number seldom, if ever, use the roads.

 As a result, the 73 has never— and the 241 only rarely— met it's monthly bond debt obligations with monthly toll revenue. They make up the difference with interest earned on their dwindling investment portfolio.

 TCA has been on the road to financial ruin from day 1. But more than just a shot in the arm, this blatant tax grab with Shadow Tolls is designed to facilitate yet another refinancing of their entire operation. Bloated bureaucracies don’t die easily. Across the nation boondoggles like TCA survive through shenanigans you or I would be locked up for.

 TCA continues to talk about “freeing up the roads.” But since they’ve never, far as we can tell, paid a dime on the principal of their bond debt, the date of that freeing up is pushed ever farther into the future. Historically, only a small number of toll facilities nationwide have actually been freed up. Most are continually refinanced to support the agency, and the careers, which built them.

 Shadow tolls are just a scam to finance TCA’s failed enterprise and perpetuate itself.

Shadow tolls won’t fix South OC traffic

 Toll discounts will probably increase toll road use, temporarily. But studies at the UC’s Transportation Center confirm what drivers already know. Any restriction on one part of a system causes congestion on the rest, therefore any toll required to use TCA’s roads will contribute to freeway congestion.

 With half the highway miles in south county under toll, the other half— the freeways— will always carry a disproportionate share of the traffic. Our freeways will become increasingly congested as long as the 73 and 241 charge even nominal tolls.

 But forget nominal. There’s a limit to how much subsidy from cities, the county, or state, will be willing to kick in. So toll discounts will probably be artificially low when introduced; they’ll reflect “congestion pricing,” meaning higher at peak commute hours; and they’ll be subject to the ebb and flow of political will for as long as they’re in effect.

How they pulled it off

 TCA is the tail that wags the OCTA dog. With roots in Orange County’s Republican Central Committee, TCA’s founders and board members are long time city politicians, many with aspiration to higher office. The Toll Roads are the county’s symbol of independence from Sacramento, a thumb in eye of state transportation planners and politicians who balked at funding county freeways in the 80s so local developers could grow ever richer on urban sprawl. 

 Rather than pay for the roads themselves OC's powerful created the TCA to encourage bond sales to clueless investors who believed, erroneously, that Orange County drivers would pay any price to live the California Dream. Too bad they didn’t do their homework.

 Now TCA faces the inevitable admission of their failure. But not before one stupendous public snow job.

Game plan

 They’ve quashed study of any and all alternative plans— like the obvious freeing up of the toll roads now.
 They’ve gotten a puppet agency, OCTA, to include Shadow Tolls in its “preferred alternative” plan.
 They’ve floated the idea— sans any reference to source of the subsidy— before their friends on local city councils, none of whom have asked any pertinent questions.
 Now they’ll launch a low key PR effort to lubricate the voting public for the inevitable.   
 But if we squeal when real action begins they’ll be ready to buy the biggest media blast ever— bigger than before Del Mar— to convince us that Shadow Tolls are the most generous thing The Toll Roads have ever done for the motoring public.

- Watch this space for more details as they become available -