The federal government declined Thursday to breathe new life into a plan to carve a toll road through southern Orange County, apparently ending a contentious, years-long campaign by transportation officials who predict that without it, the current freeway system is destined for breakdown.
Unless they turn to the courts for relief, transportation officials in Orange County will be forced to begin anew on plans to unlock the congested Interstate 5 through south Orange County, a stretch they predict will eventually become one of the worst freeway bottlenecks in Southern California. Planners must also determine how to complete the toll road system in Orange County, the only such network in the state.
Over the past several years, the fight over the toll road has grown from a parochial transportation feud into a battle that entangled the state's top leaders. The route chosen by transportation officials would have cut a six-lane turnpike through a state park and skirted the sands of the famed Trestles surf break. That prospect galvanized environmental conservation and surfing groups who were joined by several prominent state officials in opposing the road.
On the other side, advocates hailed the proposed Foothill South toll road as the key to absorbing the traffic triggered by mushrooming development in southern Orange County and the steady truck traffic in and out of San Diego County. The road was decades in the planning, and dozens of routes were studied before planners picked the proposed 16-mile path.
In February, the California Coastal Commission rejected that route, but advocates hoped -- and conservation groups feared -- that the Bush Administration would step in to save it. But in its 28-page decision, the U.S. Commerce Department upheld the commission's position.
The toll road agency can appeal the decision in federal court, but for now the proposed route through San Onofre State Beach is dead.
"In the face of overwhelming evidence, this decision is an abandonment by the federal government of its responsibility to the environment and to national security," said Tustin Councilman Jerry Amante, who chairs the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency board.
"This decision is inexplicably anti-commerce and inexplicably anti-neighborhood," he said.
As toll road advocates scratched their heads and stewed, surfers and environmentalists popped champagne.
