Surfrider Fights New Tollway Campaign, Says Widening I-5 Would Create More Jobs

The Surfrider Foundation vowed Friday to keep fighting the 241 Toll Road extension in response to a new Orange County.

“Anything that is going to continue to push an alignment of the road through the state park or very near it, we’re going to oppose,” said Mark Rauscher, coastal preservation manager for Surfrider. “We’ve had thousands of people in the region who have come out and said this is not what we want.”

Surfrider issued its statement in response to the announcement Wednesday that the newly formed South Orange County Economic Coalition—an arm of the South Orange County Regional Chamber of Commerce—would be raising funds and organizing a campaign in support of an extension of the tollway through Trestles at San Onofre State Beach park.

Surfrider says an I-5 widening project would do more to relieve traffic.

“During the 2008 California Coastal Commission consistency hearing in Del Mar, Transportation Corridor Agencies CEO Tom Margro himself testified that the estimated amount of labor required for a widening of the existing I-5 was at least comparable to, if not greater than, the proposed extension to SR-241,” the release from Surfrider states. “By stymieing the I-5 widening project in favor of the SR-241 extension, the TCA are not only inhibiting job growth, they are continuing to pursue more costly and less effective solutions to South Orange County's traffic woes.”

Rauscher said that a non-compete agreement between the Transportation Corridor Agencies and the California Department of Transportation had taken the freeway widening off the table.

He said the reason for the business community’s push for the tollway extension was the in the acreage through which the extension would pass, providing a vital transportation artery to its residents.

TCA spokeswoman Lisa Telles said the I-5 widening was considered during the 241 project’s environmental phase, and was shown to be a cumbersome and costly non-starter.

“The fact is, the I-5 widening project is a $4-billion project,” she said. “It affects homes and businesses.”

Telles said that the 241 extension would be paid for with bonds borrowed against future toll revenue, whereas any I-5 widening project would have to be paid for with taxpayer funds.

“Where is the funding going to come from?” Telles said.

Read more from Patch about the 241 extension project: