San Joaquin Transportation Corridor

As residents of Irvine, we all know how difficult it is becoming to get from our homes every day. Commuters bypass congested freeways and search out Irvine streets in the hope of a quicker trip. There is an alternative. The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor will route traffic around the city. At its closest point to Irvine homes, it will be nearly one mile away. The corridor will ease traffic on such major Irvine thoroughfares as University and Irvine Center drives.

The state attorney general's office is soliciting the opinions of city officials and residents about plans to place a tollbooth on a portion of Newport Coast Drive where it will become a part of the San Joaquin Transportation Corridor. In a letter last month to Newport Beach Mayor Clarence J. Turner, state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren said his office would collect input from all interested parties by Friday, when it will issue an opinion.

The board of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District will consider annexing part of the Irvine Unified School District at its meeting tonight. Supt. Mac Bernd said the two school districts began discussing the annexation of the Bonita Canyon area because it would be easier for Newport-Mesa to serve students there. "Because of where it is located, it would make it more difficult for them to service that area than us," he said.

South County environmentalists have called a news conference for today and are expected to announce that they will file a lawsuit challenging plans to build the San Joaquin Transportation Corridor. Four environmental groups are expected to claim in their lawsuit that the environmental impact report for the 17.5-mile toll road is incomplete and does not meet state standards. "No work should start until those flaws are corrected," said one environmentalist, who asked not to be named.

I have been reading with great interest the difficulties of the San Joaquin Transportation Corridor Agency. The toll road is generating less than half of the revenue originally projected. In the meantime, some of the agency's board members are trying to keep confidential any discussions regarding refinancing efforts, which will surely be necessary to avoid default on the $1.2 billion in outstanding construction bonds. Toll road proponents--the county supervisors, developers and business leaders--assured us that we needed this road to serve the transportation needs of Orange County and to stimulate business growth and job creation.

The main roadblock to new tollways is that not enough people will use the tollways to pay off the costs of building them ("Move Toward Tollways Hits Numerous Roadblocks," March 1). Although not featured in the article, an analysis of the problems affecting the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor toll road should be done, in particular the low usage of this road. Every time I have been on this road, there are not more than 30 cars going in both directions. The toll booths have lots of empty lanes.

South Orange County taxpayers must be shocked to read that only one week after they reluctantly agreed to a 9-cent-per-gallon tax adding up to billions of dollars for new roads, the planned Foothill and Eastern Corridor roads are not in the program. San Juan Capistrano Mayor Gary Hausdorfer and John Cox, chairman of the San Joaquin Transportation Corridor Agency board, concluded through a paid survey that frustrated drivers could be exploited to pay a toll of up to $4.50 each way besides the 9-cent-a-gallon tax to drive these future roads.

A flatbed truck overturned on the Santa Ana Freeway on Wednesday, dumping 500 gallons of red, blue and yellow printing ink on the pavement and backing up traffic five to eight miles for about five hours while Caltrans crews cleaned up the spill. "The material was not hazardous," said Mark Reeves, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.