Assembly OKs Bills Ensuring Upkeep of Planned Toll Roads

SACRAMENTO — The Assembly on Friday passed legislation intended to ensure the timely construction of Orange County’s planned toll roads.

The two bills by Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) were approved on votes of 56 to 2 and 57 to 3 and returned to the Senate for votes on amendments.

The bills would designate two county toll road routes as state highways to guarantee that California taxpayers will foot the bill for maintenance after the roads are built.

Construction financing will include developer fees and revenue bonds to be repaid from tolls collected once the highways are open to traffic.

Seymour’s bills designate as California 231 the 15-mile Eastern Corridor from the Riverside Freeway to Interstate 5 near the boundary between Tustin and Irvine. California 241 will be the 32-mile Foothill Corridor, from Route 231 near Tustin to I-5 south of San Clemente.

Cost of Maintenance

When completed, the two routes would cost the state an estimated $800,000 a year to maintain.

Approval of the bills could improve the marketability of the revenue bonds that will be sold to pay construction costs and keep the projects on schedule.

Seymour’s measures were approved without debate as the Assembly--distracted by an FBI investigation of several of its members and pressed by a crush of business to complete before next week’s adjournment--approved scores of bills in the space of a few hours Friday.

Assemblyman Robert C. Frazee (R-Carlsbad), who carried the bills on the Assembly floor for Seymour, requested that they be sent immediately to the Senate, where Seymour at first intended to take them up in hopes of winning a quick approval.

“As we get this close to the end of the session, I don’t want to get caught up in that furor when tempers flare and partisanship takes over,” Seymour said.

But he was forced to delay final approval until at least Monday because the Senate on Friday was concentrating on bills that needed to return to the Assembly for further action.

“I’m not going to jam them through,” Seymour said, adding that he was optimistic about the bills’ chances. “As of today, I think I’m out of here. That’s why I wanted to take them up today.”

The major issue Seymour will face when he does present the bills to the Senate is the question of whether the Eastern and Foothill corridors should be eligible for state funding to help pay for planning and construction.

To win preliminary Senate approval for highway maintenance funding earlier this year, Seymour was forced to accept amendments stating that no state money would be used to build the roads. But he deleted that language in the Assembly after learning that the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies, which are managing the toll road projects, could not say with certainty that the roads could be built without state money.

At the same time, however, Seymour accepted amendments that allow the state to maintain the Bay Area’s toll bridges just as it will maintain Orange County’s toll roads. Seymour said that provision should mollify several Democratic senators who otherwise would have opposed the bills.

Seymour also accepted amendments requiring the Irvine Co. to donate as much as 5,300 acres of land in the Limestone Canyon area near the Eastern Corridor as a habitat for birds of prey that use the area as a nesting place.

The San Joaquin Hills corridor, which has already been designated an extension of California 73, will need a $74.5-million “cash advance” from the state for construction, the Orange County Transportation Commission disclosed Thursday.