It was great to read that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has removed, from the parks commission, two opponents to the plan to expand the 241 toll road. The two being replaced: his brother-in-law Bobby Shriver and actor Clint Eastwood. During an editorial board meeting at the Register yesterday, columnist Frank Mickadeit asked the governor about a report that he replaced two commission members because of their opposition to the toll road. Said a grinning Schwarzenegger: “Well, this is their version. My version is that they served their four-year terms and they’ve served the state of California really well and now it’s time to change and let other people that are very excited about being on this commission to be part of this. But the fact of the matter is we believe very strongly in infrastructure and I believe very strongly that we have to rebuild California and I believe very strongly that ultimately public-private partnerships is really an additional way of getting there …. Those that think we should not build a road through a park or through a mountain just look around, just look at the map. Every road goes through some mountain or some land … or along the beach or along somewhere.”
Good for him.
241 is a sham.
It is also DOA, it won’t go anywhere.
If it were built it would only make traffic worse.
And when we are paying a CA state excise tax of 18 cents per gallon, a federal excise tax of 19 censt a gallon and a sales tax of 30 cents a gallon-WHY THE HELL ARE THERE TOLL ROADS???
YOU WANT TOLL ROADS-GET RID OF THE GAS TAXES!
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny… The reason there are toll roads are because the state does not have the money to build them itself. Once the construction fees are paid off, these toll roads will be free highways.
The 241 will be completed… Hopefully sooner than later, but it will be completed. It just makes sense to connect it to the I-5 freeway.
Schwarzenegger is dead right when he says that all roads go through some kind of open space. Can you imagine if they were trying to build the I-5 freeway today? It would never get built!
As traffic continues to worsen every day, the demand for the completion of the 241 will continue to intensify.
The Secretary of Commerce will overrule the Coastal Commission’s misguided decision to veto a traffic relief project. This road WILL be built.
Build it Now! Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny… The reason there are toll roads are because the state does not have the money to build them itself. Once the construction fees are paid off, these toll roads will be free highways.
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Bwhahahaahaha….the typical state welfare queen lie..”we do not have enough money”…yes we do have enough money-MORE THAN ENOUGH!
The “gas tax” is enough to re-build every single road in CA 10 times over-so why doesn’t that happen??
“BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE YEAR THE STATE RAIDS THE GAS TAX FUNDS TO PAY OUR OVERPAID, OVER PENSIONED STATE EMPLOYEES.
You know, the $200K per year FF, cop and prison guards, the $70 An hour teachers…..need me to go on?????
As for that other fable you tried to pass off on us, that toll roads will eventually be “free”…BAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you are smokiNG the whacky tobaccy if you think that nonsense is going to fly here.
Remember when the the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge were completed in November 1936 and March 1937???? The State of California said the tolls would end and bridge use would be “free” once the bridge bonds were paid off……WELL GUESS WHAT “BUILD IT NOW”, that was 71 YEARS AGO, the bonds were paid off 50 YEARS AGO-and WE ARE STILL PAYING FOR THE “FREE” TOLLS!!! Bwahahahah.
Remember the 1/2 cent “temporary” sales tax increase that was put into place in 1988 to pay for the Loma Preita earthquake????? It was SUPPOSED to end once the earthquake damage was paid for-sort of like how the 241, and others, toll road is supposed to be “free”.
GUESS WHAT-THAT “TEMPORARY” SALES TAX IS STILL HERE…….20 years later and it is not going anywhere.
The notion that any toll road will be “free” in the future is 100% Bull$heet!
Sorry buddy, but this is the real world, not Government Fantasyland.
Those baloney lines won’t work here-taxpayers are onto this BS.
The governor is right-on.
This road needs to be completed. Coastal access for all, goods movement and emergency response times all depend upon our planned freeway systems in southern California actually being completed. In the end, these are facts that a vocal minority funded with big money from the surf industry can’t silence.
“LOCALS-ONLY” BROUGHT TO YOU BY SURF INDUSTRY — Isn’t it ironic that companies like Hurley, OP, Rip Curl, VOLCOM, Quiksilver and others sell the surf dream to inlanders — make MILLIONS — and then when it comes to actual surfing they side with the locals like Ronnie St. Jean who don’t like “people pollution” (THAT’S YOU BRO IF YOU DON’T LIVE ON THE COAST) at “their” beach!?
The surf industry loves to take money from 909ers and others as they sell the “surf dream” but they then say tough shit we’re not going to let you surf with the locals?
All inlanders should stop buying surf industry crap today if they ever hope to see the actual surf tomorrow. Their money is just used by the surf companies against them.
Boycott surfwear today!!!
I’ve said all this before, but I’ll say it again: the toll road is a false solution, as those of us who live in San Clemente know.
First, the great supposed virtue of this road is that it’s “privately financed”, and so the darling of the Register and its libertarian staff. Nonsense. The toll road is not a private enterprise at all, but the creation of that most motley of government agencies, a joint powers commission (think of the LA Coliseum Commission and how well they’ve managed things if you want a comparitor). If there’s a type of governbent agency more hidebound and unable to stop its momentum due to sheer bureaucratic inertia, it’s a joint powers agency revenues. The only private thing about the 241 is that itr’s to be paid for by floating bonds to be sold in the open (”private”, if you will, though it’ll be classificed as a public indenture) bond market. The road’s thus no more privately financed than any public improvement funded by bonds. As for the non-resourse notion, more later.
Next, let’s look at traffic in San Clelente and points north along the 5 to see how bad it is. The answer: in general, not bad at all. Slowing usually exists northbound in them openings back from Vista Hermosa and, further north, from the PCH/Dana Point exit. What do these points on the north 5 have in common? At each, the freeway loses a lane. Rule of thumb: when a freeway loses a lane, especially as it moves into an area of increased traffic, worry. As the major added traffic of recent years, from the newer developments in the north part of San Clemente pours onto the freeway at Hermosa, and cars from Dana enter at their only access point, the freeways NARROW. And we wonder why traffic backs up on the north 5 on occasion (morning rush, major beach weekends and holidays).
Traffic from SD county and the older parts of San Clemente, south of Pico, has and is fairly constant as opposed to earlier years, for the simple reason that you can’t build any more down that way between the county line and the marine base. The added burden comes from entering traffic on Pico and Hermosa. And there’s lots of Caltrans land along the 5 in that area to accommodate added lanes without condemning any properties at all.
As for the south 5, it usually backs up again at the Dana Point exits, where what happens? Again, the freeway loses a lane. I hope you’re saeeing a pattern here. And I don’t thikn anyone supporting the 241 realistically expects anyone to believe that it would alleviate much southbound traffic on the 5. That direction we can leave aside as irrelevant.
So we see that the design of the 5 is at least majorly complicit in the traffic that the 241 would supposedly alleviate. now we should ask the central quesdtion: would it in fact alleviate it? This is what you might call the 261/73 syndrome. The contrast between these 2 toll roads is stark. The former id\s a relative success (that is: it pays its bond service obligations). The latter is a disaster - hardly travelled at all, and unable to pay its own way, having already been bailed out once by the toll road agency to prevent defaults (so much for the bonds being non-recourse - do you really think if the 73 defaults that the governments represented on TCA’s joint powers agency won;t be forced to step in to support the bonds?). Why the contrast? i believe it’s because the 261 procides a service that freeways don’t: easy access to Riverside from south OC that isn’t otherwise available. The 73, by contrast, only parallels the 5; there’s no place you can;t get to off the 73 that you can’t get to off the 5/405 virtually as easily, especially given the large arterial roads built into south OC’s infrastructure. This provides a useful lesson in human nature: given the choice, we’ll take the freeway as opposed to the toll road anytime, even if we have to sti in traffic. The real demonstration of this lies on the 5 every morning. After the choke points described above, the 5 flows smoothly until when? Right AFTER the 73 splits off. Then as it winds north through areas also served by not only the 73 but the existing section of the 241 - not one but two major toll highways within three miles in either direction of the freeway - traffic is jammed.
So much for traffic alleviation.
California is built not on toll roads but on freeways that all may equally use - a marvellously egalitarian concept the\at even the states back east that originally built toll roads (as a Nrew Jersey native, I can attest to this) have learned - they since have built freeways that parallel most of their older toll roads.
Simply put: preople won’ take the 241 if it’s built as planned. As planned, it goes far south of where the real need for traffic allevation is - north San Clemente. 241 should be built to Avenida Pico, and Pico improved to at least quasi-freeway status to connect to rhe 5 there. That makes dempgraphic and highway sense, leaves critical environmental areas and parkland untouched, and at least partially adresses the traffic needs of the new and planned developments in inland south county (which were the original driving force behind 241 anyway - those developers need their roads to build their megamansions out there in Rancho Mission Viejo).
The 241 is a joke. Forget it.
Right! No one will take the 241… just like no one takes the rest of the toll roads… excpet for the 250,000 people everyday who do.
I’m so glad rlh doesn’t think traffic on the I-5 is an issue in San Clemente, but believe me he is in the vast minority. Case in point, Cassie DeYoung based her campaign on that same assumption saying that traffic congestion isn’t an issue and the 241 shouldn’t be built. Pat Bates said traffic is bad and the 241 should be built. Bates won easily.
There has yet to be an elected official in Orange County that has made stopping the 241 a centerpiece of their campaign that has won. The vast vast majority of people want the 241 to be completed and as traffic congestion continues to worsen, that majority will continue to grow.
Rancho Mission Viejo has been approved for construction. They’ll probably wait the market out, but as soon as the housing market turns around, they’ll begin building, which will make the support for the completion of the 241 grow even more.
It will be built… Oh yes, it will be built. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
The number who take ALL the toll roads isn’t in question - the number who will take an extended 241 is. And for that I believe you have to look for comparison at the 73, which is a financial basket case (something you don’t deny while bua ha ha ing your way alone). I also don’t advocate not building ANY road, as you may have missed, but terminating it early at Pico instead of going down into the sensitive areas.
Advocacy for the 241at TCA is revealing - they say they’ve been doing it for 20 odd years and they’re by God not going to stop now. Think about that. This is inertial government bureaucracy at its worst, a stance typical of joint powers agencies. If you think it’s hard getting one government agency to change its mind or admit it was wrong, try one comprised of five or six government agencies! It surprises me that the Register, and its supposedly libertarian writers and readers, don’t have the healthy dose of skepticism they usually do with regard to this agency. Twenty years is a long time, and public needs and desires - not to mention public valuation of altyernatives and deleterious consequences - can change. But no sir, the TCA ain’t gonna change, no way. It’s going to lumber on forward like the idiot dinosaur it is, and refuse to acknowledge public concerns or regluatory problems.
And as for traffic not being bad in San Clemente, I said it isn;t MOST OF THE TIME - which it isn;t. I also looked at the bottlenecks that cause it to back up when it is bad. You don’t argue with any of that, which I appreciate. An improved 5 through the north part of town, along with connecting the 241 through Pico to the 5, can and will do a lot to relive the problems that exist without causing the problems the current proposed layout threatens to.
Times change. Would that TCA, and its cohorts, could too.
Build it Now! Says:
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:04 am
It will be built… Oh yes, it will be built. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
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No it wont, it is DOA.
And I have a G thart will back my mouth up.
How about you Build It Buddy-wanna back that up that flapper of yours with $$$>?
Simply put, if you can’t handle the traffic work closer to home or move. I for one don’t live in California because getting around is easy! Its a trade off the good for a bad and in my opinion the good beats the bad hands down / even during winter / surfer or not.
NO ON 241