Susan Valot
February 05, 2008
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The tug-of-war over the proposed 241 toll road extension in south Orange County hits the California Coastal Commission on Wednesday. KPCC's Susan Valot says the commission will weigh both sides at a hearing in Del Mar.
Susan Valot: The Coastal Commission staff sides with the environmentalists who say extending the Foothill Toll Road through San Onofre State Beach would ruin a pristine environment.
But supporters say the proposed highway between Rancho Santa Margarita and the San Clemente area is vital to relieving the constant traffic headache on Interstate 5. Scott Bollens is an urban planning professor at UC Irvine. He characterizes the toll road dispute as a battle between the "relentless push of urbanization" and efforts to retain some sense of place.
Scott Bollens: There's a real change in mentality going on here among developers and environmentalists in terms of what Orange County is. We're starting to run out of green field, pristine land. So these battles represent the last pieces of the puzzle in the maturation of what now is a pretty fully built-out suburban county.
Valot: Bollens says battles like these are inevitable when you have substantial urban growth on top of a population that's already pretty dense. He says the Southland's expected to add the equivalent of two Chicagos in the next quarter-century. Bollens says when it comes to the 241 Toll Road and growth, it's not a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.
Bollens: Here, it's chicken with the egg. So in this area down here with the extension of the Foothill South Toll Road, there's about 14,000 new homes that have already been approved and granted for the Rancho Mission Viejo Company. So the growth is premised on the infrastructure and, of course, the infrastructure is built to accommodate the expected growth.
Valot: Urban planning expert Scott Bollens says what fascinates him most in the 241 Toll Road battle is how the Transportation Corridor Agencies, a public entity, built support for the toll road. TCA runs TV ads, maintains a website, and flashes messages on freeway traffic signs.
Bollens says you don't usually see creative marketing from what he calls the "stodgy" government sector. But he says you don't see the old way of building roads – with state and federal funding – anymore, either.
