73 toll rate could rise

Newport-Mesa elected officials are dismayed by a proposal that could make the Newport Coast onramp on the 73 toll road the most expensive entrance on the road per mile.

The toll road 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. The agency’s board of directors plans to vote to accept the report at its May 8 meeting.

Jennifer Seaton, a spokeswoman for the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency, said if the board followed the report’s recommendations, the onramp fee in Newport Coast would rise 25 cents in 2010 and do the same again every two years. The board, she noted, would not have to adjust the fees that way even if it accepted Stantec’s report, since the members determined toll rates on an annual basis.

Still, Costa Mesa Mayor Eric Bever, a member of the board of directors, and Newport Beach Councilwoman Leslie 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 Daigle said would balloon to $4.25 by 2031 if the proposal goes through.

The Stantec report also recommends a 25-cent increase every two years at the El Toro onramp, Webb said, 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.

Seaton said the agency aims to make the Newport Coast and El Toro onramps more expensive than others because they border the main Catalina View Toll Plaza in the middle of the toll road. That gate charges more money than those to the south and north, and Seaton said the agency wanted to discourage drivers from taking the Newport Coast or El Toro ramps to avoid paying the top cost.

“We want them to go through that mainline plaza so they’re paying that rate,” she said. “Unfortunately, we recognize this system means there are inequities in how many miles are traveled in relation to how much you pay.”

Webb and Bever said they had expressed their frustrations with the report to others on the board, to little avail. The Newport Beach City Council plans to discuss taking a formal position on the matter at its meeting next week.

“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 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.

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