Managing the Coast, Managing Traffic : Politics of the San Joaquin Tollway Project Show a Miasma of Competing Needs

Every morning and evening, a flood of traffic hastens across the San Diego Creek channel not far from the UC Irvine campus right by Upper Newport Bay. The beauty of the setting and the urgency of that daily commute hint at a larger conflict symbolized by the site. It has to do with the stress of preserving what makes Orange County’s coastal areas beautiful and alleviating some of the worst traffic congestion in the state.

The reason is that the 17.5-mile San Joaquin Hills tollway is scheduled to cross the channel at that site and connect with the Corona del Mar Freeway. It is there that some of the conflict is now bitterly focused. The Coastal Commission staff has weighed in with a recommendation that the commission deny a construction permit. And it asked some larger, penetrating questions about whether the project is consistent with federal coastal management policies.

These questions merited a more serious response than that initially given by John C. Cox Jr., San Joaquin Hills corridor agency chairman and Newport Beach city councilman, who portrayed the report as a missive from the camp of die-hard road opponents.

There was also some ambiguity in the report, perhaps a reflection of the very tensions inherent in the project. For example, the staff hailed the Transportation Corridor Agencies for working to resolve issues, and it called the agencies’ marsh creation program “adequate and consistent.”

Indeed, the very question of whether such a road would be allowed under the jurisdiction of the Coastal Commission tells a tale. Orange County planning has historically put the pedal to the metal and asked questions later about environmental suitability. It is only thinkable that the tollway would cross into the Coastal Zone above Crystal Cove State Park because county officials years ago secured the right to administer that area by having the state commission approve a Local Coastal Plan. The county has granted another construction permit under that plan.

But the politics of the Coastal Commission--its staff on the one hand and the commission on the other--are not lost on the corridor agency chairman. Confident that the commission will overrule the staff, he basically lumped the staffers in with environmental naysayers by suggesting that those who even question the law are being obstructionist. That wasn’t very fair, and, perhaps unnecessarily, it didn’t do much to alleviate the concerns of reasonable folks who rightly want to see the environmental issues properly buttoned up.