Proposed bill could force motorists to pay to drive on Hwy.
152
Almost 150 years ago, travelers had to pay a toll to ride along
the portion of Hwy. 152 east of Gilroy over Pacheco Pass.
And if state legislators have their way, motorists may once
again have to pay for the privilege of driving on one of the
state’s most congested highways.
Proposed bill could force motorists to pay to drive on Hwy. 152
Almost 150 years ago, travelers had to pay a toll to ride along the portion of Hwy. 152 east of Gilroy over Pacheco Pass.
And if state legislators have their way, motorists may once again have to pay for the privilege of driving on one of the state’s most congested highways.
Quietly working its way through the California Legislature is AB 3021, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, which would establish a transportation board in charge of creating and maintaining toll roads while giving local and regional agencies the right to require tolls on projects within their jurisdictions.
But some local officials are already wary of the bill, saying solving Santa Clara County’s traffic problems by creating toll roads could result in even more cars on San Benito County highways.
“We should all be very interested in this and we definitely need to be watching at how it plays out,” county Supervisor Pat Loe said. “What Santa Clara County appears to be doing is pushing all of its traffic south towards us.”
Other local officials, such as county Supervisor Don Marcus, believe toll roads could be an answer to the limited funding now available for road improvements.
“The concept of using public and/or private construction agreements resulting in ‘toll roads’ have been used successfully for many years in other areas,” said Marcus, who has served on the Mobility Partnership subcommittee for the last three years. “I believe this idea could be pursued as one viable option.”
AB 3021 has already been approved by the Assembly and is now before the Senate. The bill would set up the California Transportation Financing Authority, which could use funds raised through tolls to create revenue bonds for various state and regional road projects. There are currently several toll roads in Southern California, equaling about 51 miles.
Recent news accounts indicated that should the bill pass, one project that could be considered would be the section of Hwy. 152 east of Gilroy, which runs through San Benito County.
According to the article, tentative plans call for a bypass of Hwy. 152 – which would be an eight-mile, four-lane freeway that would run south of and parallel to the existing highway. Traffic from Hwy. 101 would take Hwy. 25 then be diverted to the new freeway, which would eventually link to either 152 or 156.
Early cost estimates are about $500 million, according to the Valley Transportation Authority. And because there is no money currently available for such a project, the article suggests the road could be made a toll road in an effort to offset costs.
Loe said she had several concerns about the San Jose Mercury News article, which she feels gives readers a false impression that such a project is already under way.
“I think the headline is very misleading,” she said. “At first I thought it [the idea for a proposed highway expansion] was much farther along than it was. Right now we don’t even know if this bill will even be approved in Sacramento. If Hwy. 152 were to eventually expand the way [the Mercury News article] implies I think it would mean more truck traffic on Hwy. 156 and that means more traffic for us.”
The idea of toll roads is not a new one in California. In 1986, the state Legislature authorized the creation of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which is made up of two Southern California public agencies – the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency and the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency. The TCA’s purpose is to collect tolls to finance, design build and operate a series of roads in the southern part of the state, in areas such as Irvine, Rancho Santa Margarita, Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano.
Fifty-one miles of the system have been completed; the first section opened officially in Oct. 1993. Total cost of the completed 51 miles of roads is an approximate $1.8 billion.
These toll roads were originally planned as freeways but traditional funding through state or federal agencies was not available, according to the TCA Web site. Orange County officials opted not to wait for funding to come through and instead created the TCA.
The TCA has the authority to issue non-recourse bonds, which are sold to private investors. With a non-recourse bond, if the borrower defaults, the TCA can seize collateral but cannot seek out the borrower for any further compensation, even if the collateral does not cover the full value of the defaulted amount. The TCA collects tolls to repay the bond debt.
There are several other toll roads in Southern California owned and operated by separate agencies, such as the Orange County Transportation Authority, a joint agency between Riverside and Orange counties. In 2003, the OCTA took over ownership of the 91 Express Lane, which runs from the Costa Mesa freeway interchange in Anaheim to the Riverside County line, from Cofiroute USA, a private company, for a cost of about $5.5 million.
Toll rates are set to ensure that the revenue needed to make bond payments is collected and that traffic on these roads continues to flow freely and easily – meaning toll rates vary from road to road and increase in higher congested areas. For example, a one-way trip on the 10-mile-long 91 Express Lane at rush hour can come to $9.25, according to the OCTA Web site.
Although she agrees that finding funding for road improvements can be difficult, Loe said she has real concerns about a state agency having complete control over what happens on the highways of San Benito County.
“I think people are way ahead of themselves,” she said. “There are so many questions that need to be answered. Would commuters leaving our county have to pay the toll? And what would the toll be? What worries me is that this proposed transportation board would be able to set the toll and increase it whenever they wanted and we wouldn’t have a say.”
Information for this story was researched on the Transportation Corridors Agencies Web site at www.thetollroads.com and the Valley Transportation Authority Web site at www.vta.org.
