Hoping for the End of the Road for Tollways

Re “Tollway Board Cuts Lanes for the Foothill Extension,” Feb. 15:

We didn’t need Wall Street to tell us that toll roads are junk; it has been obvious from the start. The toll roads are a financial boondoggle, an environmental catastrophe and a roadblock to public road improvements. The Transportation Corridor Agencies have spent years, not to mention millions, to make the toll roads look like a success. They paid for consultants to tell them what they want the public to believe; they had city council members sit on their board and vote “yes” on toll roads, even if the cities they represent don’t support their votes; and they cry foul when critical habitats or clean water laws get in the way.

The state won’t bail them out, riders won’t pay more in tolls, and people who care about open space, endangered species and clean water won’t go away. It is important that the TCA learn from its mistakes before going ahead with plans to build the Foothill South extension. Even if they could finance it and clear all of the environmental hurdles before them, it is too huge of a mistake for them to say “Oops” about later.

Julia Dewees

Rancho Santa Margarita

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The bad news just keeps coming for the TCA, Orange County’s strangest bureaucracy. But--surprise! The agencies’ staff and contractors prosper. Foothill South traffic projections off by 50%? No problem. Spend $3.5 million more to further review the design of a road nobody needs.

Need to bleed revenue from the Foothill/Eastern to prop up the San Joaquin Hills toll road, thus making Foothill/Eastern users pay more tolls for more years? Again, no problem.

It’s time for South County’s political leadership to demand accountability and decent accounting for the TCA, which administers billions in debt and wants to add more by building the Foothill South.

Supervisor Tom Wilson is conspicuous by his silence. Yet the final act of this debt-ridden farce could be in his district. It’s time to ask hard questions and demand straight answers. And it’s time for taxpayers to practice the following phrase: “No bailout!”

Bill Corcoran

Conservation Coordinator

Sierra Club

Los Angeles

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Reducing the toll road’s number of lanes may be a step in the right direction for some, but it is not enough. We need to place limits on man’s intrusion into the natural world and we need to start in our own backyard. We need to save South County. It is one of the world’s most biologically diverse areas, and it is an area of natural wonder worth saving.

Mark Tabbert

Newport Beach