Private Road Projects Must Stay Private : * Public Should Not Be Drawn in to Help Rescue, Foot Costs of Troubled Tollways

There are two kinds of toll roads proposed for Orange County, and the complex web of financing, environmental review and politics involved in both is enough to make any commuter’s head spin. On the one hand, we have the quasi-public tollway agencies proposing controversial corridors that have long been on the drawing boards. Then there are strictly private tollway lanes, to be built at private initiative in response to bidding invitations from Caltrans.

The question about one proposal of the latter sort--privately owned toll lanes on the Riverside Freeway--proposed as a private-sector project, is whether the public would somehow be drawn in for financial support. The idea of having privately sponsored tollways is a sensible one, provided that the private sector really does go it alone and the public is not enlisted as some kind of bailout agency, the role the public has had to assume to rescue private railroads in the past.

Now there is recent controversy about the Riverside Freeway project, and lurking in the background is that familiar question: Will the public get drawn in to save the day? It should not.

Riverside County officials have seen an opportunity to benefit from the privately owned lanes now planned for a 10-mile stretch between the Costa Mesa Freeway and the Riverside County line. They argue that the charging of tolls in Orange County will be unfair to Inland Empire commuters who already have voted to tax themselves to widen the freeway on their side of the county. They have proposed a major expansion of the toll lanes into Riverside County, with reimbursement to the Riverside transportation panel for lanes already being built. In response, Stanley T. Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority, has said the right thing: that this is a private sector proposal and it should remain so, with no long-term public investment.

But at the same time, Oftelie suggests that to get the Orange County lanes built quickly, a short-term investment of transportation sales tax revenue may be in order, with the idea that the county could be reimbursed. This suggests confidence that the private tollway builder certainly would be able to reimburse the county. But would it? If the private firm failed to get financing, or encountered other financial problems in this tricky economy, the public would be stuck. If the agencies that would review such a plan ever find it before them, they should be guided by the notion that these tollway lanes should be private all the way.