Get ready to dig into your wallet: Toll lanes may be coming to 91, 60, 215 freeways

Love them or hate them, more miles of toll lanes are probably coming to Riverside County.

A road-building agency is poised to launch a $1.4 million engineering study to examine what it would take to extend Corona’s 91 Freeway toll lanes east to downtown Riverside, and to add toll lanes on the 60 and 215 freeways in Jurupa Valley, Riverside and Moreno Valley.

They wouldn’t be built tomorrow or next year. But the Riverside County Transportation Commission’s analysis would set the stage for a potential roll-out during the 2020s.

Officials say they are preparing for the “next generation” of Inland toll lanes following the debut of the 91 Express Lanes in Corona in March 2017, and next year’s anticipated opening of toll lanes on the 15 Freeway in Corona, Eastvale and Jurupa Valley. Toll lanes also are planned for 33 miles of the 10 Freeway in San Bernardino County.

“We’re just trying to get a better idea of what the future holds,” said John Standiford, the commission’s deputy executive director.

In most locations, an existing carpool lane would be converted to a so-called express lane that both ride sharers and toll-paying single drivers could use and one new lane would be constructed — on each side of a freeway.

That would provide two express lanes in each direction.

Initially, the 91 Freeway was to be different. Staff for the transportation commission proposed converting carpool lanes in Riverside, but not building any new lanes. Some commissioners objected, though, prompting staffers to expand the study’s scope and increase its cost by $300,000, officials said.

Commissioner Kevin Jeffries, who’s also a Riverside County supervisor, said the original idea for the 91 gave him “heartburn.”

“I believe a toll lane should only be done to help pay for something, for freeway expansion that the state and federal government won’t pay for,” Jeffries said.

He and commissioner Wes Speake, a Corona councilman, voted against the preliminary study plan at a Western Riverside County Programs and Projects Committee meeting June 24.

Speake said he gets why toll lanes are on the drawing board, given the shrinking financial support from Sacramento and Washington for highway widening.

“The state is not funding capacity,” he said. “It just isn’t.”

And, he said, transportation agencies have to find “creative ways” to fund projects, including charging motorists to drive.

“But — and this is a big but — the public needs to get something out of it,” Speake said. “You can’t take something away from the public and not give them something in return.”

That something is new lanes to drive on, he said.

After hearing the staff revised the study’s scope, Speake said, “I feel much better about it.”

Standiford said any such new lanes are years away and would arrive only if the commission decided to build them.

The agency is trying to stretch dollars, provide congestion relief and do it quickly, Standiford said. At the same time, he said, officials want to speed travel in carpool lanes during rush hour.

“In some cases, they really don’t provide much of a time savings,” he said, saying the 91 in Riverside is one of those places.

Here’s what the commission may add:

• Two express lanes in each direction on the 91 from the 15 Freeway in Corona to the 60/91/215 interchange in Riverside, a distance of 14 miles, by converting carpool lanes and constructing toll lanes.
• Two express lanes in each direction on the 60 Freeway from the 15 Freeway in Jurupa Valley to the 60/91/215 interchange, a distance of 10 miles, by converting carpool lanes and constructing toll lanes.
• Two express lanes in each direction on the 60/215 Freeway from the 60/91/215 interchange to the 60/215 split in east Riverside near Moreno Valley, a distance of 5 miles, by converting carpool lanes and constructing toll lanes.
• One express lane in each direction on the 60 Freeway in Moreno Valley from the 60/215 split to Theodore Street/World Logistics Center Parkway, a distance of 10 miles, by converting carpool lanes.
• One toll lane in each direction on the 215 Freeway in Riverside and Moreno Valley from the 60/215 split to Van Buren Boulevard, a distance of 4 miles, by constructing toll lanes.

As for the 91, Standiford said the agency initially proposed a carpool conversion only over concerns that building new lanes in the tight corridor would be too costly.

“We still have some concerns about the cost,” he said, saying it “would be in the neighborhood of a billion dollars.” That compares to a preliminary estimate of $184 million for just converting the 91 carpool lanes.

However, Standiford said the staff wanted to address the panel’s reservations about a carpool conversion with no new lanes. And staffers want to give commissioners plenty of detailed information to make decisions down the road.

For now, commissioners are scheduled to consider Wednesday, July 10, whether to award a contract worth up to $1.4 million to WSP USA to do a planning and engineering study. The analysis would be completed in summer 2020.

Preliminary estimates put the cost of adding toll lanes on the 60 from Jurupa Valley to downtown Riverside at $508 million.

The cost of adding toll lanes on the 60 from downtown Riverside to Theodore Street in Moreno Valley was estimated at $128 million. And the cost of adding toll lanes on both the 60 in Riverside and Moreno Valley, and on the 215 Freeway south to Van Buren Boulevard, was estimated at a total of $319 million.

Whenever a new toll-lane project is proposed, criticism multiplies on social media. And the idea of converting an existing carpool lane rubs many commuters the wrong way.

Amie Kinne, a Temescal Valley resident who helps administer the lively Greater Corona Traffic Alliance group on Facebook, said that’s because “the taxpayers paid for that carpool lane” and turning it into a toll lane means officials are going “to charge us rent for something we already own.”

Jeffries said he doesn’t particularly like toll lanes.

But, he said, if there’s not enough money to build what’s needed and a toll-lane project is used as a tool to widen a congested freeway, “I’ll hold my nose and let it go through.”