Newport Coast toll rate could increase

The Newport Coast entrance to the toll road on the 73 Freeway soon could be the most expensive of all the road’s onramps, according to Newport-Mesa city officials who serve on the toll agency’s board of directors.

Costa Mesa Mayor Eric Bever and Newport Beach Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Daigle said the agency’s consulting firm, Stantec, has issued a report that proposes raising the toll fee at the Newport Coast Drive ramp by 25 cents every two years while imposing smaller increases on most other entrances. Bever, a member of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency’s board of directors, and Daigle, an alternate member filling in for Newport Beach City Councilman Don Webb, consider the plan unfair to Newport Coast residents.

“The problem for us is it’s going to be the most expensive mile in the whole system,” Daigle said. “There’s an equity issue where some of the ramps in South County are going to be significantly less.”

The current cost to get on the toll road in Newport Coast is $1.50, a cost that Daigle said would balloon to $4.25 by 2031 if the proposal goes through. Webb said the Stantec report also recommends a 25-cent increase every two years at the El Toro onramp, but since that entrance is farther away from a regular freeway, the Newport Coast ramp would amount to more money per mile of toll road.

The board plans to vote on the proposal at its May 10 meeting. According to Bever, the agency’s consulting firm determined that Newport Coast drivers would still willingly use the toll road even if they had to pay a higher fee, although Bever wasn’t sure how the firm reached that conclusion.

Bever and Webb said they had voiced their objections to the rest of the board, but to little avail.

“Mr. Webb and I both realize we are vastly outnumbered with so many South County representatives,” Bever said. “They don’t feel our pain.”

Daigle said she also worried that higher costs on the toll road would cause more people to take surface streets and thicken traffic in the Newport Coast area. The cost increases, Webb said, would accumulate over time even for wealthy Newport Coast dwellers.

“If you have to pay that extra $2 every time you go to work, it adds up,” he said.

Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell, also a member of the board, said he didn’t believe the Stantec report would translate to an official policy. The agency, he said, would probably just use the onramp fee raises as a prediction to show to future investors in the toll road.

“They’re not saying this is how it must be in the future,” Campbell said. “It’s not a toll policy.”

Efforts to reach officials from Stantec and the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency have been unsuccessful so far.

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.