Orange County's toll road operators thrive on gridlock. The more congested the public highways and the more miserable the commute, the more they can charge motorists to use their less-crowded pavement.
They even have special agreements with the state to keep it that way for decades to come.
Under so-called noncompete clauses, toll road operators can veto improvements to public highways--such as new lanes--if the work would threaten to take customers away from the pay-as-you-go roads.
In growing metropolitan areas with bumper-to-bumper traffic that begins to thicken before dawn, the restrictions mean the California Department of Transportation and local governments are largely powerless to ease congestion on public highways that run close by Orange County's toll roads.
So broad are these protections that the state could be prevented from making freeway improvements to accommodate motorists headed to a proposed commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base. An effort to eliminate major freeway choke points in the heart of Orange County could be in jeopardy. And widening the Riverside Freeway, one of the most congested highways in the state, is virtually impossible for another 29 years or until traffic thickens to near-gridlock.
"Not everyone is happy about them," said Cypress City Councilman Tim Keenan, a member of the Orange County Transportation Authority board of directors. "Toll roads are an evil necessity. They were an innovative solution to build freeways, but the burden of their success should not fall on all the drivers in Orange County."
Orange County has more toll roads than anywhere else in California. There are 10 miles of pay lanes along the center of the Riverside Freeway and 51 miles of tollways operated by the Transportation Corridor Agencies. The $3.7-billion, corridor-agency system includes the Eastern, Foothill and San Joaquin Hills tollways, as well as a short stretch of Laguna Canyon Road.
The protection agreements with the state could stand in the way of widening at least a third of the county's 222 miles of freeways, including 30 miles of the Riverside Freeway and stretches of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways through central and south Orange County.
