The 241 Toll Road Extension: No More Fee-based Pavement South of Oso Parkway in Mission Viejo

The 241 Toll Road Extension: No More Fee-Based Pavement South of Oso Parkway
First in a Series: The Anti-Toll Road movement in South Orange County CA
The emerging war between the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) and the righteously concerned residents of Ladera Ranch, Rancho Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente is real. Now the remainder of SOC needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

And like Van Halen sang, "It’s right here, right now!"

Mainstream media (MSM) have been slow on the uptake, and unfortunately done some of the TCA 241 Foothill cabal’s heavy lifting by typifying, by categorizing challengers as NIMBYS. Considering the sheer number of the participants, the wide swath of buy-in, that’s a lot of back yards, and it’s not selfish as the TCA PR flacks would have you believe.

"It takes two to lie, Marge. One to lie and one to listen." Homer Simpson

That quote pretty much sums up the perennially scandal-plagued TCA for you, that’s how they roll. Artifice and deceit to justify their existence, in this case Fear and Loathing in SOC.
All of that MSM cloaking, TCA-advanced misdirection and disinformation will change soon as a nascent group branding itself as “NOMI” begins to ramp it up, assert themselves. Well on their way to making "Not One More Inch" a meme.

DISCLAIMER: That's not NOMIs logo above, they haven't officially launched as yet that I know of.....I captured the inspirational jpeg accompanying this column online, in public domain.

NOMI is a grass roots, umbrella movement, born of frustration, constellating due to the alarm and outrage by regional stakeholders over what the TCA seems to excel at: Wastes and mismanages our money, while paving under the last best places---that is what open space is left of the formerly pristine, undisturbed coastal sage wilderness.

For an eco-protectionist, at stake is the aesthetic, physical, chemical and biological integrity of the lower reaches of the San Juan Creek Watershed and sub-sheds of San Clemente.

There are irreversible, irrevocably permanent recreational impacts as well that I’ll cover in a later installment. This one is only intended as an introduction, a primer.

The biota in “Deep South OC” are important, determined by higher jurisdictional powers and more appropriate public trustee agencies than the TCA to be Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas(ESHA), meriting the highest degree of preservation and protection.

The TCA, insult to injury, refuses to admit that the 241 Extension south of Oso Parkway is a probably a solution in search of a problem. Supply and demand, so where’s the demand half? Exaggerating the need for a direct, undisturbed 241---5 Freeway connector by funding, then citing an echo chamber “Ascertainment Study,” basically interviewing and polling a small sample of their own incestuous swamp inhabitants.

I’ve never read an objective Cost/Benefit analysis, nor a Cost/Effectiveness one either that supports the “Need.”

The TCA is using classic marketing models, manipulated the commuters into thinking they have a demand and guess what? Your old altruistic buddies over at the TCA are there to serve you, will supply it, congestion relief if you swallow their multi-million dollar jagged little pill.
In days of yore, this was called useless “snake oil,” today it’s called “providing you a transportation choice.”
Perhaps the OC and/or State judges now intervening via litigation will have an easier time getting the TCA’s attention, convincing them that the questionably legal, VERY substantial fiscal arrangements they made with the Save San Onofre Coalition (to be paid by those who had no voice, us) regarding a 241 Extension is at best an unnecessary folly?

An approximate ¾ mile long, 100+feet wide bridge planned to transition Los Patrones, fly south over San Juan Creek and the Ortega Highway, then penetrate through the San Clemente foothills for a mile or 2 hasn’t quite gotten the attention it should either. Haven’t seen that on the MSM radar screen have you?

TCA planners can’t seem to make up their minds: "Do we tunnel for a mile or two from the San Juan Creek side into San Clemente or just carve out an entirely new car canyon, Mother Nature be damned? Hey, sticker price is irrelevant, after all it's not our money, nor will we be around when the corrupt consequences, the ramifications of our fatally-flawed actions reveal incompetency and malfeasance."

The TCA and its usual elitist sycophants have historically failed to deliver on what environmental analysts like myself commonly use as metrics:

• Economics: Is the project affordable, based upon independent peer review have a viable revenue model, and most importantly in the long term is it economically sustainable?
• Mobility: Will it truly address and remedy to the extent boasted the mobility issues, accomplish congestion relief for the region in question?
• Environment: Is it so ecologically devastating that no amount of mitigation can balance or offset, compensate for the horrific displacement, interference and destruction of high value habitat, rife with indigenous threatened and endangered native species of flora and fauna?

Many TCA supporters actually believe the PR propaganda, drink the green kool-aid when it’s arguable that the 241 Extension south of Oso Parkway is a monstrous solution in search of a problem.
Green gargle away, not as environmental stewards, but as in the shade of money because ironically this Joint Powers Authority uses their own stakeholder’s millions to shove, like paté, more fee-paying, unwanted pavement down our collective throats.

This war could take years due to the litigation and recent admission by the TCA that a new, more thorough Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) is necessary.

Actually, “capitulation” is a more apt description, the TCA blinking, succumbing to pressure from the public and lawsuits filed by both The Reserve HOA in San Clemente and the City of San Clemente
http://san-clemente.org/about-...

This war will eventually be declared over, MSM will tout winners and losers: Although if typical of past land use wars in the OC there will only be casualties with permanent victory elusive due to the persistence, the controversy, the distrust that always swirls around the TCA like some evil fog.

Presently, the TCA has been rumored to be dangling hefty swag in the faces of players on the bubble, the old go-to divide and conquermethod.

“Alert opportunist” is an erudite way to describe a burglar, a thief: They’re prepared to keep searching, be vigilant for vulnerabilities, i.e., seek open doors or windows until they find a way in. That’s the way the TCA functions in a nutshell. Find a path of least resistance, then fire up the bulldozers.

This is where NOMI becomes critical: Stop this insanity at Oso Parkway. That so-called “Gap Closure,” the Oso Bridge and Los Patrones Parkway through RMV should be free, not a 241 Toll Road Extension.

Occam's Razor, aka The Rule Of Parsimony is being ignored: The simplest solution is usually the correct one.

What’s intuited is algorithmic, that simple formulaic approach: Wait until after the planned Ortega Highway widening is completed, until local commuters become accustomed to the recently opened La Pata arterial, coupled with keeping the Bridge/Los Patrones unencumbered by vehicular fees, THEN come to proven, intelligent, not knee jerk conclusions as to the NEED.

In the next installment I’ll try to elaborate, drill down and more concisely elaborate upon the TCA's convoluted rationale and the 241 Extension’s glaring deficiencies for those interested.

“Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” Ambrose Bierce

The author, Roger E. Bütow, has lived in Laguna Beach for 45 years. He's a retired general contractor whose construction career overlapped with his professional transition into the land use and regulatory compliance advisory field. He founded and has spent the past 20 years as the Executive Director of CLEAN WATER NOW (formerly Clean Water Now! Coalition). His contact information can be found at www.clean-water-now.org