Assemblymember Rocky Chávez and Orange County Cities Present AB 382 to Reorganize Regional Transportation Planning in Orange County

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., May 08, 2018 -- Assemblymember Rocky Chávez today introduced Assembly Bill 382 (AB 382), which seeks to limit the powers of the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) and allow one regional body, the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), to manage all global traffic solutions for Orange County. 

“There is no need for duplicative, wasteful government agencies in Orange County,” stated Assemblymember Chávez. “AB 382 allows the TCA to follow its own advice from 1996 and simply go out of business. The TCA hasn’t built a new road in over 20 years, yet it continues to collect hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to pay high-priced consultants for unnecessary new toll roads that will probably never be built.”

AB 382 would limit the TCA from forming a new joint powers authority to construct new toll roads and limit the TCA from incurring any new indebtedness for the construction. It will remove all transportation planning functions from the TCA, leaving the TCA with the ability to service their existing toll roads and complete their debt obligations before the existing toll roads are returned to the public when these debt obligations are paid.

Efforts to consolidate the TCA’s function with other agencies have been around since the 1990s. In 1996, Paul Glaab, director of public affairs for the TCA, told the Los Angeles Times: “We're a single-purpose public agency, [whose purpose] is to finance, design and build the roads and then go out of business.”¹ Since the opening of the toll roads in the 1990s, the TCA has not built any new toll roads nor have they gone out of business. Furthermore, it was promised to taxpayers that the existing TCA toll roads would eventually become free roads for Orange County residents. However, over $1,000,000,000 in bond obligations were recently refinanced, extending repayment for toll roads built in 1997 until 2050.

“It’s clear that Orange County only needs one transportation agency to pursue regional solutions to fix our real traffic problems,” stated City of San Clemente Mayor Tim Brown. “OCTA has the power to implement real, regional traffic solutions, utilizing every available tool in the transportation toolbox. TCA, on the other hand, only has legislative authority to build new toll roads, requiring them to find new toll roads to justify their continued existence.”

According to a recent survey by Probolsky Research, 59.1% of Orange County residents do not use the existing toll roads on a regular basis. When asked whether OCTA should take over the duties of the TCA, 67.1% of Orange County residents agreed, with only 13.9% disagreeing.²

AB 382 follows the recent IBI Group report, which found that building TCA’s proposed SR-241 Extension will do virtually nothing to enhance the mobility projects currently planned in the OCTA Master Plan of Arterial Highways (MPAH) 2040 buildout. According to data provided by OCTA, the proposed SR-241 Toll Road Extension will only serve around 10,000–15,000 drivers a day (less than one-half of one percent of current traffic on South Orange County roadways) despite costing approximately $2,000,000,000 to construct. At this rate, the average revenue from the new toll roads would not cover the debt service on the new borrowing necessary to construct the unnecessary toll road.

TCA, which was originally formed in 1986, oversees the San Joaquin Hills, Foothill and Eastern Toll Roads. The TCA has not built any new toll roads since 1996, existing solely to continue to collect development fees, manage the existing toll roads, and to propose new toll roads to justify TCA’s continued existence while spending millions to battle Orange County residents and other stakeholders who oppose TCA projects.

“Regional traffic planning should rest in the purview of the Orange County Transportation Authority,” said City of San Juan Capistrano Councilmember Kerry Ferguson. “OCTA will look at all the possibilities for smooth flowing traffic in our region, not just building more roads or taking over lanes for tolling. TCA has put shaping public opinion to fit their goals ahead of the needs of the public.”

Contact: Adam Englander – (310) 717-8311 or [email protected]

^{____________________}

¹ “Heavy Lobbying Helps Spare Tollway Agency” Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1996.
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-04-22/news/mn-61460_1_toll-road
² Orange County Countywide Voter Survey, Probolsky Research, conducted September 21-23, 2017. Survey Methodology – 400 registered voters in Orange County, with a margin of error of +/-5.8% with a confidence level