The San Joaquin Hills Tollway Would Actually Worsen Traffic
Congratulations to staff writers Eric Bailey and Jeffrey Perlman on their stories about the proposed San Joaquin Hills tollway (Feb. 10).
The tollway is a billion-dollar boondoggle designed not to relieve present unbearable traffic congestion but to facilitate further overdevelopment of south Orange County by two marauding giants, the Irvine and Mission Viejo companies.
The key piece of information provided by The Times is this: “Along the San Joaquin Hills route alone, 105,000 new homes are expected, as well as 54.7 million square feet of industrial and commercial development.â€
What you neglected to point out is that a conservative estimate of the number of additional motor vehicle trips per day from 105,000 new homes and 54.7 million square feet of industrial-commercial buildings is 1,500,000. And what is the maximum capacity of the tollway? A meager 156,000 trips per day by the year 2010. Not only will the tollway fail to relieve present congestion but it will also facilitate total traffic chaos and gridlock in south Orange County.
To add to this irony, we are ordered to cut water consumption by 10% now and 20% later. Why? So the developers can build more overpriced, unsaleable houses.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has declared that the toll road’s environmental impact report does not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. It certainly doesn’t comply with ordinary common sense either.
The only acceptable alternative to the tollway is the no-build alternative.
C.D. BLODGETT, Laguna Hills
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