O.C. Tollway Opening Will Be First in Decades : Transportation: Motorists will be able to travel a 3.2-mile segment of the Foothill Corridor next Sunday.

LAKE FOREST —  California’s first modern tollway opens to traffic next Sunday in the dusty foothills of Orange County where the growth of well-manicured communities has led to 10-mile commutes that can take more than an hour.

The initial segment is only 3.2 miles of what eventually will be a 30-mile, nearly $1-billion tollway that will allow motorists on Interstate 5 to avoid the legendary snarls at the El Toro “Y,” the confluence of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways.

Ending California’s decades-old resistance to toll roads, the Foothill tollway will collect a 50-cent fee for cars and offers motorists a high-tech automatic vehicle identification system that eliminates the need to stop at tollbooths.

When the highway is completed after the year 2000, tolls are expected to be about $4.50 for a trip along the entire length from San Clemente to Irvine.

The road was financed with developer fees and bonds, which are to be repaid by tolls and assessments on new-home buyers and businesses. Orange County is planning five such pay-as-you-drive roads, with two of them funded and operated by private companies. The new financing became inevitable after the public in 1984 rejected a referendum for a one-cent sales tax to finance new freeways.

The 55-m.p.h. tollway represents a new wave of toll road construction occurring in the United States, Europe and Asia.

California Department of Transportation director James W. van Loben Sels said the project “is an excellent example of California’s creativity in pursuing alternative ways of financing” roads that “otherwise would not be built.”

Pointing to scant resources and deteriorating infrastructure, U.S. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena last week called the toll road “the kind of creative, public-private financing effort the Clinton Administration wants to encourage.”

Partly because of a lack of funds, fewer than five miles of freeway have been added to Orange County’s highway system since 1974. Meanwhile, the county’s population has jumped 41% and is expected to gain another half a million people, reaching 3.1 million by the year 2010.

The highway partly exists to accommodate future growth. But it is at odds with environmentalists concerned about damage to endangered or threatened wildlife species, including the California gnatcatcher, a rare songbird.

New development has already spread along the northern half of the 30-mile Foothill route, partly in anticipation of the tollway, which has been shown on county maps since the mid-1970s. The planned communities of Coto de Caza, Foothill Ranch, Portola Hills and the much larger Rancho Santa Margarita are growing somewhat because of the tollway.

In Foothill Ranch, for example, a new shopping center with the county’s first Wal-Mart is planned next to the initial 3.2-mile segment. And Rancho Santa Margarita is attracting employers who otherwise might leave the county. Loral Aeronutronic, which had considered moving from Newport Beach to Texas, cited the proximity of the Foothill tollway in deciding last week to relocate to Rancho Santa Margarita instead.

But some think the road is a dinosaur. Judy Davis of Citizens Against the Tollroads, a group that runs ads against Orange County’s tollways, said these highways “represent old, 1950s-style thinking.”

“Pouring more concrete is not the answer,” Davis said. “We sympathize with the suckers who bought houses near the Foothill toll road, because they have to get to work. But our quality of life is being destroyed.”

Some toll road opponents are expected to picket the road’s grand opening ceremonies. The events begin with footraces Saturday morning, followed by symbolic first toll payments by County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez and San Clemente Councilman Scott Diehl, chairman of the Foothill Transportation Corridor Agency, which built the road and is a consortium that includes the county and cities along the route.

The first tollway segment extends from Portola Parkway near Lake Forest to a new, 4.5-mile extension of Portola Parkway that ends at Jeffrey Road in Irvine. The Portola Parkway extension will not have a toll. The next segment of 4.4 miles opens in 1995 and will connect with Antonio Parkway in Rancho Santa Margarita.

Officials have adopted a low-key, community-oriented approach to boosting the grand opening, using the entrance fees from the footraces to benefit Saddleback Memorial Medical Center and a low-budget advertising campaign based on themes such as: “The corridors: Because life’s too short to sit in traffic” and “What will you do with the time you save?”

The ceremonies will feature Irvine Police Sgt. Brian Clifton, who was the first person to sign up for the tollway’s FasTrak system, which utilizes dashboard-mounted transponders and AT&T; “Smart Cards.” The wafer-thin cards are inserted in the transponders, which exchange account information with tollway computers, thus allowing motorists to bypass tollbooths.

FasTrak users deposit $30 in advance to start their accounts and receive the transponders and Smart Cards. FasTrak Service Center is at 30 Fairbanks in Irvine. Also, motorists can deposit coins into automated collection bins or pay an attendant.

The tolls will not kick in until Nov. 1, allowing motorists time to become familiar with both the road and the equipment.

Even the truncated roadway is likely to be popular with motorists who live in the areas between east Irvine and Rancho Santa Margarita.

Clifton, the Irvine officer, said he is thrilled about the new road because it will ease the commute for him and his wife, Gloria, an office manager. They live in rustic Trabuco Canyon just north of the tollway.

“It’s really going to help us, since we’ll be able to bypass the ‘Y,’ ” Clifton said. “We also have friends in Irvine, and we like to go the Palm Springs area too, and this also will help us get out there faster.

“I know it will reduce some traffic-related stress,” he said.

Much of the road’s success will hinge on the high-tech gear used to operate the tollway.

But there have been some glitches.

For example, the dashboard-mounted transponders tend to turn themselves off when temperatures exceed 190 degrees inside a car with the windows rolled up on a hot day.

“We’re looking at temperatures over 200 degrees in some situations,” said Dennis Bennett of Lockheed IMS, a subsidiary of the giant aerospace firm, which is responsible for the toll collection system. “We found that the devices are programmed to avoid overheating by shutting down.”

As a result, researchers probably will change the color of the transponder casings from black to white or use another more heat-deflecting material.

Also, marketing research indicates some owners of more costly cars may resist attaching the transponders to their dashboards with the Velcro supplied for that purpose, fearing that it will mar the surface.

Some dashboards are shaped in ways that will not accommodate the transponders, so Lockheed is checking with authorities to see if it is legal to mount them in a corner of the windshield, using suction cups.

Bennett is confident that such problems will be resolved. Lockheed, which hopes to cash in on defense conversion opportunities, has at risk its $600-million contract to build and manage the toll collection system for all three of Orange County’s public toll road projects.

“Under the contract the accuracy needs to be at about 99.9% accuracy,” Bennett said. “We’re not there, but we’re really close. . . . And this is exactly why you do a lot of tests, to see what fine-tuning and tweaking you have to do.”

Some of that work was being done last week on the tollway itself.

As rental vehicles passed through one of the toll plazas during a series of tests last Tuesday, Daryl Rojas, 31, who has been unemployed since January, helped monitor the results.

“He’s typical of the people we’ve hired,” said Bennett of the former Navy man. “He’s a very bright young man, but he couldn’t find work because of the recession.”

More than 300 people applied for the 20 tollway jobs that have opened up so far. “We thought there would be more retired people from Leisure World, and students,” Bennett said, “but there haven’t been too many of those. It’s been extremely qualified people who are out of work.”

While admitting that the initial 3.2-mile segment will not relieve much traffic congestion, Bennett defended the symbolic as well as the technical role that the first section will play. “This allows you to get up and running and show people what this is all about,” he said. “And to work the bugs out.”

“I think the opening of this toll road has tremendous significance,” said Stan Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority. “Once other portions of it are connected, it will be an important alternative to Interstate 5, which for many people is a nightmare.”

“This ushers in a new era,” Oftelie added. “The tollway represents a different way to look at how we solve our traffic problems. When you consider the other toll road projects pending in Orange County, we’re at the center of innovation.”

Let the Tolls Begin

California’s first modern tollway will open next Sunday along the first 3.2 miles of the Foothill Transportation Corridor. Grand opening ceremonies will be held Saturday. The 50-cent auto toll will go into effect Nov. 1, after a free, get-acquainted period.

Tollway Tidbits

* Length: 3.2 miles

* Toll: 50 cents for autos

* Payment: FasTrak system using Smart Cards or coins in automated collection baskets

* Daily volume: Less than 5,000 until other segments open

* Toll plazas: Four

* Bridges: Eight

* Cost: $37.2 million

* Jobs created: About 2,000

* Staff: 18

* At completion: Tollway will be 30 miles long by 2010; $4.50 toll

Source: Transportation Corridor Agencies, Lockheed IMS

Researched by Jeffrey A. Perlman / Los Angeles Times

Freeway Openings

The first freeway in Orange County opened 40 years ago. Here are the dates when major roads first opened segments to traffic: Freeway: Year Santa Ana (5): 1953 Riverside (91): 1958 Costa Mesa (55): 1962 Garden Grove (22): 1963 San Diego (405): 1965 San Gabriel River (605): 1966 Laguna (133): 1968 Orange (57): 1969 Corona del Mar (73): 1974 Source: Automobile Club of Southern California

Historic Tollway Opening

Except for a few bridges and the scenic 17-mile drive near Carmel, the Foothill Tollway will be the first fee road in California since 1929, when they were banned. The tollway gives motorists a way to bypass the heavily congested El Toro “Y” interchange.

1) Portola Parkway extension connects tollway with surface streets

2) Initial section of Foothill Tollway; 3.2 miles; opens Sunday

3) Second section; 4.4 miles; opens 1995

4) Final section; opens 2000 or later; final route may change

*

Foothill Frolics

County tollway officials have scheduled several events to mark the opening of the first section of the Foothill tollway. A series of footraces with the theme “Run where no one else has run before” will be held Saturday on the new road before grand opening ceremonies later in the day.

Saturday Events

Half-marathon and 5K: 7:30 a.m.

10K: 8:30 a.m.

1K “fun run”: 10 a.m.

Dedication ceremony: 11:30 a.m.

Community open house: Alton Parkway interchange, noon to 2 p.m. (featuring “FasTrak” electronic toll collection display and alternative-fuel cars)

Entry fees for half-marathon, 5K and 10K, $20; $15 for the 1K run.

Entry forms and additional information available by calling (714) 557-3388, ext. 444.

Source: Transportation Corridor Agencies