Continued opposition to plans for the completion of the 241 Toll Road has many Rancho Santa Margarita residents and business owners frustrated. Bill Lockyer, the California State Treasurer, announced that his office has just filed a suit in San Diego County against the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency alleging that TCA violated the California Environmental Quality Act.
Other suits have been brought by the Native American Heritage Commission and an environmental coalition group that includes Surfrider Foundation, the California State Parks Foundation and the Sierra Club. The basis of the suits is that the TCA neglected to sufficiently address environmental concerns related to the project.
I was born and raised in South Orange County and this has been my home for over forty years. I appreciate concerns for the environment and our beautiful parks and beaches but I also see the undeniable need for an acceptable solution to South Orange County’s growing traffic concerns. I watched the battle over the 73 Toll Road drag on for years before it was completed. That toll road has worked well to ease some of the congestion between San Juan Capistrano and Costa Mesa.
Here’s a critical thing that I think many opponents of the 241 Toll Road are missing: they fail to recognize that the proposed connector benefits the majority. It is the greater good. Many of the opponents have benefited indirectly from the development of communities such as Talega and Ladera Ranch. Ongoing development fosters additional jobs, additional business opportunities and it plays a roll in defining the local housing market; but the infrastructure needs to be in place to adequately support the increased population and it clearly is not.
Traffic congestion just continues to get worse and worse. I love Orange County and I don’t want to see its beauty sacrificed unnecessarily; but these communities have already been developed. Traffic congestion is already a concern. The 241 Toll Road will eventually be completed – it’s just a matter of when. It happened with the 73 Toll Road; it will happen with the 241. The question is “How much more time and money will be wasted in futile lawsuits and political circuses?”
Jennifer Seaton, a spokeswoman for TCA estimates that for every month that the project is delayed it costs an additional $3Mil in construction costs. The project has already been delayed for 2 ½ years. That’s $90Mil folks! With numbers like that it makes me wonder how many Rancho Santa Margarita residents will be able to afford the toll by the time the 241 is finally completed.
Until the attorneys for all parties duke it out in federal court, RSM residents will have to hang tight. More news and information on the proposed extension of the toll road can be found on TCA’s Newsroom