Toll lanes planned as part of widening of 15, 91 freeways
By JEFF ROWE - Staff Writer | Monday, March 30, 2009

RIVERSIDE ---- Toll roads are coming to the county.

There is plenty of time to start saving quarters, though; it likely will be 2019 before the tollways are open along the expanded Interstate 15, county transportation officials say.

Plans now call for adding three more lanes each way, two of them toll lanes, on an 11-mile stretch of the freeway from Highway 60 to Highway 74.

The Riverside County Transportation Commission also plans to widen Highway 91 from the Orange County line to just east of I-15. Three new lanes are planned for that freeway; two of them would be toll lanes.

The combined cost of the projects would be about $3 billion, the commission estimates. It would be financed with bonds that would be paid off with toll revenue.

"We have done considerable analysis and are confident that these projects will pay their way," said John Standiford, deputy executive director for the commission.

The commission is anticipating the county will grow from about 2.1 million now to about 3.5 million people by 2030.

Three informal public information meetings are planned to present the projects and gather ideas on alternatives for expanding the freeways and how best to reduce congestion on I-15. One of those meetings will be held Wednesday in Murrieta.

The commission is working on the environmental reports now, but the start of construction is probably eight years away. The I-15 project likely would use at least part of the existing median and would require very little land acquisition. Widening the 11 miles of Highway 91 would require considerable land acquisition, however.

Joining the RCTC in the I-15 and Highway 91 projects are the Federal Highway Administration, Caltrans and the cities of Murrieta, Wildomar, Lake Elsinore, Corona and Norco. The commission anticipates working closely with the cities that the projects would pass through.

Toll roads are the way of the future for financing freeway projects, said Ron Roberts, a county transportation commissioner from Temecula.

"It has to be pay as you go," he said. "There just isn't enough money to build freeways the traditional way."

Roberts said his only concern with the widening project on I-15 is that it stops in Lake Elsinore. "Traffic doesn't decrease from Lake Elsinore to Temecula," he said.

Contact staff writer Jeff Rowe at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2621, or jrowe@californian.com.