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“First they came for the 405, and I said nothing for I rarely use the 405.
Then they came to put toll lanes on MY freeway,
and I had no-one left to speak out for me.”
– Niemöller, paraphrased by North, South, and Central OC residents not long from now.
In the run-up to tomorrow morning’s blockbuster OCTA meeting (Nov. 8) – at which OCTA staff will ONCE AGAIN ask the OCTA board to approve the zombie “Alternative 3” (toll lanes on the 405) – I want to start by preaching against PROVINCIALISM in Orange County.
Just part of the concerned, overflow crowd at Oct. 29’s townhall (which OCTA staff and Caltrans refused to attend)
At Oct 29’s standing-room-only townhall meeting on this issue, convened in Westminster, all the officials who spoke out eloquently against the scheme, all the public speakers, and probably nearly all the 150+ attendees, hailed from the “Corridor Cities” – that is, the cities immediately adjacent to and affected by the proposed toll lanes – from Seal Beach, Rossmoor and Los Alamitos down through Westminster, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa. (It was unnerving to see Allan Mansoor and Jim Righeimer as welcome sights.)
And it’s unmistakeable at the OCTA Board meetings that the only opponents of these toll lanes (at least the only strong, dependable opponents) are the elected officials representing those affected areas – HB’s Matt Harper, Seal Beach’s Gary Miller, Supervisors Moorlach and (usually) Nguyen. THEY’VE even been chided by the toll troll Todd Spitzer for THEIR provincialism in refusing to go along with such a noble project for the greater good.
Diana Lee Carey calls the meeting to order; mayors and other officials of the affected cities wait to speak, all firmly in opposition to these toll lanes.
I say, ANYONE in Orange County who’s not up in arms about this is the one being selfishly provincial. Because, as I suggested in the Niemöller paraphrase above, the toll lanes will be coming to YOUR local highway next, after they pull it off here. Spitzer, Miguel Pulido, Board chairman Winterbottom – the most enthusiastic of the Board’s toll supporters – have made it clear that they want to see a countywide network of interconnecting toll lanes in the coming decade.
That means all of you will be seeing the negative effects that we foresee with our traffic and businesses – You south countiers when they get around to your part of the 5 which is probably next; Santa Ana (Miguel is practically salivating to rip up your part of the 5); Orange, Garden Grove and Anaheim when they get around to the 22, 55, and 57.
And it’s YOUR representatives on the Board that aren’t listening – Supervisors Nelson and Spitzer, Irvine’s Lalloway, Anaheim’s Eastman, Garden Grove’s Jones, Mission Viejo’s Ury, La Habra’s Shaw – they should be hearing from you and responding, and there should be plenty of you at tomorrow’s meeting raising holy heck.
I was originally going to call this article “The 405 Uprising” but then I realized I’m playing into that provincialism myself, we need an Uprising Against OC Toll Lanes, period.
What next? I know a lot of people are going to be reading this who didn’t follow the issue last year as closely as some of us, so there will be some background, but first let’s quickly explain:
What Do We Have Against OC Toll Lanes? (and this 405 project particularly)
- We are a “SELF-HELP” county, a county which has already voted, twice, with Measure M and Measure M2, to raise our own sales tax to pay for our own highway improvements. We’ve already come up with $1.3 to $1.4 billion for just this 405 improvement alone, PLENTY to just build two new FREE lanes going each way between the 605 and 55 – and that is what will improve traffic flow, and that is what we want. When the Toll Trolls claim that “the toll lanes will pay for themselves,” as they got Nick Gerda to report, they are engaging in their most offensive lie, which I’ll explain below under “Most Offensive Lie.” Furthermore, being asked to pay hefty tolls ON TOP of of our years and years of sales tax, just to go at a reasonable speed, is, we believe, to be taxed TWICE.
- Speaking of Measure M and M2, those measures specified NOTHING about toll lanes, and if they had, they would never have passed. Supervisor Bates and many others have bellyached over this VOTER BETRAYAL. And you are right, Pat, so we wish your vote were a little more dependable on this.
- Simple logic, honest studies, AND the experience of others show that Toll Lanes will ONLY make things better for the folks who can afford (and choose to pay) the hefty tolls – for the rest of us, even MORE of us will be stuck in the same number of free lanes, making traffic even WORSE for us, if you can imagine that. Or don’t imagine – try the 110 in Los Angeles, where they’ve done the same thing. The stalwart Moorlach quoted a public commenter from LA in a recent Moorlach Update:
One speaker seemed to mark the proximity of Halloween by stating, “be scared, be very scared.” What made this particular speaker’s remarks so compelling is that he has commuted for years to Los Angeles in the carpool lanes on the San Diego 405 Freeway to the carpool lanes on the Harbor 110 Freeway. With the recent conversion of the carpool lanes to toll lanes his commute has become unbearable, as the lanes end in gridlock, backing up the toll lanes. He had a smooth trip until the pilot project began, and now abhors the last leg of his commute. Hence, his concluding remarks on converting the current carpool lanes to toll lanes, “be scared, be very scared.”
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Furious representative of the Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce describes the damage toll lanes would cause him and his members. Photo by Nick Gerda of the Voice.
Possibly the most compelling reason the politicians and businesses of the “Corridor Cities” are up in arms is because these toll lanes, with their few-and-far-between entrance and exit points, whoosh the most moneyed drivers right past our most important business districts – the car dealerships of Westminster, HB and CM, the Westminster Mall, Bella Terra, South Coast Plaza – resulting in CERTAIN damage to the profits of said businesses and tax revenues of said cities. And it will be the same when toll lanes come to YOUR town, pal.
- Just on principle – and what are we OC’ers if not people of principle? – nearly everyone I know, liberal or conservative, despises the further enshrinement of a two-tiered society we would see here, with the 1% rushing by blissfully while the rest of us 99% suffer in worse traffic than ever. As Diana Lee Carey asks in the magnificent letter she sent to OCTA this week (which I will attach below) – Who (of the public) would benefit from these toll lanes? Only “high-income families and large corporate entities that can write off transportation expenses.”
- For those of you seeking more arguments for your speeches tomorrow, Diana’s letter is a treasure trove.
The Toll Trolls’ Most Offensive Lie Two Biggest Lies
1. “Any toll lanes would be funded not by taxes, but through bonds paid off by toll revenue.”
These toll lanes COULD NEVER BE BUILT without first using our $1.3 billion of taxes to build two new lanes. Then it would cost them an additional $400 million to convert the two inner lanes to HOT (toll) lanes – THAT would be funded by bonds paid off by toll revenue. So they piggyback on us taxpayers’ $1.3 billion, for which WE GET NOTHING. (See Lie #2 below.)
This was brought home recently when we asked Caltrans (more explanation about how Caltrans got involved, to come) why they want to make toll lanes in our county and nowhere else that has lotsa traffic, like LA, and their answer was “LA doesn’t have the money to build toll lanes.” You SEE – they want to make YOU AND ME pay for something we don’t want, that will make our lives worse, but will bring THEM revenue.
2. “Alt. 3 would add one general purpose (free) lane, one HOT (toll) lane, and convert the current HOV (carpool) lane to a HOT lane.”
What’s a lie about this, you ask? Some OCTA members called ME a liar when I insisted we would get NO NEW FREE LANES out of this scam, but no, THEY’RE the liars. They want us to think “well, at least we’re getting one more free lane out of this.” We aren’t. Pay attention: Right now we have FIVE FREE LANES. One of them is a carpool lane that you can use whenever you have a passenger, which most of us frequently do; it is FREE.
Alt 3 proposes to build two more lanes, one on the outside and one on the inside – just as Alt 2 would do – and then convert the TWO INNER LANES to toll lanes. Hence: Five plus two, minus two, equals five. NO NEW FREE LANES under Alt 3. And it’s worse than that: Under current plans Alt 3’s toll lanes will be available to carpools – but only 3-passenger cars and over, and not always for free either. So the only difference for us middle-class and working-class people is that cars with one passenger will no longer have a carpool lane to use.
The HUNGER…
I wrote one of my favorite passages on this topic last year, a baroque passage where I compare OCTA staff’s tenaciousness and resourcefulness to a villain in a movie that you think you’ve killed but then rises up with a new weapon and attacks you again, and also compared their consuming hunger for revenues to that of zombies or vampires prowling the streets at night. I won’t make you read it again. Instead I’ll link you to a more sober (but still fun) essay from the late Gus “Mayor Quimby” Ayer that puts the OCTA staff’s desperation into a historical context.
This was a hunger that caused OCTA staff, and their sympathizers on the Board, to spend 2012 lying, exaggerating, understating, cherrypicking, and avoiding uncomfortable questions, all in an effort to defeat the locally preferred Alternative 2 and make their cherished Alternative 3 look both desirable and inevitable. (You will notice, any newbies out there, that I make a great effort to distinguish OCTA staff – an unelected bureaucracy with the natural institutional hungers bureaucracies have – with the OCTA Board – 17 voting members 15 of whom are your elected officials – who COULD, if they desire, slap the staff down.)
When the Toll Trolls withdrew in defeat a year ago, having only mustered six votes for their toll dream, we KNEW and predicted that they would be back this year with some new trick, some new twist. It’s a very convoluted one, let me try to unwind it for you:
This Year’s Trick: the Caltrans Kabuki
First who is Caltrans, how do they tie in with OCTA, I wanted to know too, who’s in charge, so I asked around. It turns out that Caltrans (aka the Department of Transportation) actually OWNS all our highways and makes sure that they keep up to the applicable laws and standards. But as far as any improvements, Caltrans (which has no money) has ALWAYS deferred decisions (and funding) to the local transportation authority – in our case, OCTA.
And yet all of a sudden this year we have OCTA staff – which we knew was DYING for toll lanes – coming back to us saying “Bad news! We HAVE to make toll lanes here ourselves or else CALTRANS will come, make toll lanes themselves, and send the money to *gasp* SACRAMENTO! At least when WE make it we can keep the money here.” And the Caltrans rep, obviously recruited to be Bad Cop, nods his head menacingly.
Last meeting I went to, as I was walking in, OCTA chairman Darrell Johnson was in the middle of bowing and scraping to the Caltrans rep, “We realize if we don’t do this ourselves you’ll do it and keep the money.” And the Caltrans rep nodded his head menacingly. What a load of KABUKI. (And the majority of the Board, most of them newbies, either takes these threats seriously or pretends to.)
What would be, then, Caltrans’ justification for jumping in and forcing toll lanes on the OC in such an unprecedented way? Like I said, this is convoluted. In any case, this first part is LONG ENOUGH, I’ll continue with the whole “degradation” story tomorrow … after we see what happens at the meeting, where, word is, they’re going to vote to DELAY the whole decision. Come anyway! Cuz you never know what these tricky people will do…
(after a little drink and swim or whatever)
I’ve started calling the proposed 405 Toll Road the “Middle Class Bypass” — because the main point of it is to allow the wealthy to bypass the middle-class drivers stuck in what will be ever-worsening traffic next to them. But once THEIR problem is solved — there’s no problem remaining, right?
I’m a bit surprised at Lalloway’s support for this. I’m even a little surprised at Eastman’s support of this. Not surprised about Shaw.
Funny you mention – Lalloway just chided me that “I need to get some new information” and linked me to this Register article from today:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lanes-535202-toll-tolls.html
…which reports that 9 out of 17 members are going to vote for DELAY.
1. This changes nothing. ONE of those 9 could change their minds tomorrow or next week or any time, so it’s still crucial we all show up and rattle their cage. Plus we are aiming for a solid majority for ALT 2.
2. This delay, if I’m not mistaken, is desired by folks like Jeff and Todd who support Alt 3 Tolls, but only want to be assured by the state that the state won’t take that precious revenue from the county. (A scare story told by Moorlach as he desperately fights from all angles.)
I’m a little alarmed that 8 members are so gung-ho at this point!
Oh, I don’t know how I’m ever gonna get all the wrinkles into this story. Working on the “three big lies” right now…
P.S. How could you be even a little surprised about Eastman? Pringle has his chubby fingers in this you know. And what would make that incurious woman have any doubts about it?
Political self-preservation. Eastman styles herself as a populist. This is a very NON-populist vote. I think that it will cost her plenty in next year’s election. You say “toll lanes on the 5, 22, 55, 57, and more of the 91” to Anaheim voters and I think they spit. And if it isn’t stopped here, it invites much or all of that future — as you note.
But if she wants to hand people like me that sort if an easily understood “shill for the rich” issue, I suppose I should appreciate it.
Well, she’ll need an opponent. Any ideas?
Yes.
You’ll have to explain to me some time where you get this Eastman “populism.” The main trait I observe in her is a comically misplaced confidence in her own superior judgment and understanding, mixed winningly with a difficulty in explaining herself.
Oh, and a prim aversion to rough language and feisty crowds which is also pretty far from populist.
“Some time” will be today!
That “prim aversion” is an example of her populist style. (I didn’t say it was substance.) Populism is generally the opposite of libertarianism — I know, that political dichotomy is also one that gets bent here in OC — and it’s the civil libertarians that argue that everyone is entitled to their time at the microphone. Populists tend to rail against that intrusion of “so-called rights” over “what the people want.”
Generally, she couches her arguments (and yes, she does have some) in the sort of “folksy and common-sense” way that is the opposite of Murray’s corporatist robotic droning on purported facts.
Really? Class warfare? How about the BILLIONS going to contractors, engineers, bureaucrats, bond salesmen, political campaign accounts, etc. etc. Well I guess these people do constitute a sort of a class. All the way down to the petty spongers like Pacific Strategies Unlimited.
And in the end the the taxpayers – all of us, will be on the hook when the chips are down – it’s in the public Right-of-Way.
The 1% can’t pay enough tolls to make this happen.
Just think San Jaoquin Toll Road.
All of what you say above is true — but it’s ALSO class warfare. It’s not so much the top 1%, though — more like the top tenth of 1%. This doesn’t have to make money; it just has to give people a clear and clean drive from Newport Coast (and eventually from San Diego) to downtown LA without having to stare at the bumpers of commoners.
It might be cheaper to just give them free daily helicopter rides from Fashion Island to Staples.
and greg, just what is wrong with that concept
You mean the helicopters?
I had a long chat with Supervisor Nelson about this yesterday. I don’t think I changed his mind, but you never know. He and a few others are arguing that “if we don’t vote for this, Caltrans will unilaterally impose toll lanes on us. To me that is not a very good argument. I reminded him that this is not only a bad idea, but horrible politics for him and the other toll lane supporters. Why get tarred and feathered for voting for something you say you don’t believe in and the public hates. Just vote NO and let Caltrans own this turkey. When it implodes like Obamacare is doing right now, you can say that you never supported this train wreck.
I don’t believe this Caltrans threat. I think it is Kabuki theater. We knew that when OCTA’s revenue-starved staff failed at getting toll lanes last year, that they would come back with a new trick this year, and this is what it turned out to be – using Caltrans as a BAD COP. Their threats are hot air. I’ll be writing about this later. Directors like Shawn who worry about that – I can’t tell how many of them are disingenuous or sincere – but they are WEAK.
PS I am also worried that Shawn has been getting too comfortable lately with the Pringle crowd – the “Masters of the Universe.” Where’s our old feisty rebel? (It WAS good the other day his slamdown of Todd’s latest police state move… http://www.voiceofoc.org/countywide/county_government/article_5952fb76-46b6-11e3-9c15-0019bb2963f4.html)
Check the Form 460.
Save us some time with a summary.
Nope. Gotta look yourself. It will take about 2 minutes.
Link? That’s what takes more than two minutes for many readers.
OC ROV. Campaign finance.
Jeez.
Oh, here:
http://nf4.netfile.com/pub2/AllFilingsByCandidate.aspx?id=7224666&candidate=Nelson%2c+Shawn
Thanks. I’m not the only reader here, you know.
Profiles in Courage.
What if any part does SCAG (Southern California Association Of Governments) play in this?
Is this just a mouthpiece organization so unemployed council people can make per diem?
The website describes them as a driving force in regional transportation issues. Has anyone infiltrated them yet, it occurs to me that most money hungry, upward mobile politicians would love to jump on this bandwagon.
SCAG conducted a series of public outreach meetings for two years to gather public input for the PE Right of Way. The public preferred light rail at the meetings. According to the OCTA website, these recommendations will be forwarded to SCAG’s Transportation Committee and Regional Council in September/October 2012 for final approval. The timing is noteworthy.
http://octa.net/Plans-and-Programs/Pacific-Electric-Right-of-Way-Study/
A transportation study that includes both freeway and light rail needs to be conducted as part of the discussion to improve the 405 freeway. Both are part of the solution.
So from your answer, I can only assume that SCAG is another pipeline to keep otherwise underemployed elected officials busy.
Really, how many of these “ghost” organizations do we need?? meanwhile issues that matter (presumably) get ignored.
I say stop the Calderon style “non-profits” promote public financing of elections.
So with their proposal, would someone that does not carpool gain a lane? If I read this correctly right now, we have 4 general purpose lanes. With their proposal, we would have 5 general purpose lanes for a gain of 1.
I am not really in favor of toll lanes, but I would love to be able to use the lane that we currently have too. So many carpools are not removing a car from the road which should be the purpose of the carpool lane otherwise we are rewarding families who would in no way drive 2 cars somewhere or a parent with a child in their rear seat who obviously cannot even drive. I say, put in all the proposed lanes and allow all of us to use them.
I know you don’t like toll lanes, neither do I, neither does Moorlach. I think we should get rid of ’em.
But is changing a free 2+ carpool lane to a free general purpose lane worth $1.3 billion of our tax money, not to mention the 5-year ordeal of tearing down and rebuilding (I think) 13 bridges?
Vern, it will not be $1.3B to just change a carpool lane to a general purpose lane…one whih is paid by taxpayers, one which should be available to all taxpayers. We could change the existing HOV lane which is used by a lot of drivers who are not removing a car from the road to a general purpose lane with a bucket or two (yes, they are big buckets). THEN, lets make the best decision for the whole…which would be adding more general purpose lanes. The best for the whole would be to have general purpose lanes…sounds like we could add 3 general purpose lanes (2 new construction and 1 conversion from HOV)…that would be a great move and use money that all of us pay and provide a benefit that all of us could use. Do we really want lanes that the top X% can use (i.e. X% +/- of cars on the road)?
This is a great time to make a decision that is best for the people…
Interesting carpool experience today…I up in OR/WA area. OR has carpool on I5. WA used to. Historically, OR and WA traffic has been bad in the Portland area (incl the WA side). WA got rid of their HOV lanes. Which side oft he Columbia River do you think has better traffic flow on I5? Yes, I know that this is anecdotal, but shows that you can go back from HOV to general flow.
again, you guys are missing the point,,,there is a very deserving but underserved constituency that would benefit from a toll lane,,,,have some compassion for the minority
Don’t forget developer friendly Frank Ury OCTA member from Mission Viejo who’s big claim to fame on the OCTA website was a FAILED attempt to make Edison bury a new high voltage power line! Only Councilwoman Cathy Schlict is against the 405 toll lanes!