Not Tolling Roads for the Wrong Reasons

I have recently read an article in the Orange County Register about an approved expansion of a major highway.  The project will include the expansion in both directions of I-405 from Euclid Avenue and I-605.  this is a highly congested area of Orange County that is in dire need of transportation management to help alleviate congestion.  For the purposes of my next argument I would like to avoid discussing the issue of induced traffic and work with the current practice that adding a lane to a major highway can help since both options in this case included adding lanes, that is a different conversation for a different day.

I am extremely confused at the decision that was made by the Orange Country Transportation Agency (OCTA.)  I am not confused that they voted 12-4 to allow the expansion, I am confused that they voted down the proposal to include tolls on some of the lanes of the expansion.  It is estimated that these toll roads would decrease the current 57 minute and 54 minute northbound travels times in the general-purpose and carpool lanes respectively to 29 in general-purpose and 13 in the express lanes.  This alone should be a good reason to want to add tolls.  But the reason the board did not vote to include the tolls is mainly because they could not decide how the estimated $1.5 billion in toll revenue over 20 years would be spent.  The admitted reasoning behind their choice surprises me.  If they were to turn down the expansion entirely due to the idea that there is such a thing as induced traffic I would understand.  But the OCTA still chose to expand the road anyway with no tolls with the money coming from a previously approved half cent sales tax.  My main argument is that there are many ways, especially in California, that the money could be spent that could be decided later on at a more appropriate time.  I am further driven to believe this with the following quote from Chairman Paul Glaab.  Glabb was quoted in saying, "A lot more people are going to move in so it will become congested, and that's why some members wanted to go with the option that includes the toll component because we have proved in Orange County that our constituents will pay a premium in order to decrease the time they're spending in traffic."  Basically, Glabb, who is also the mayor of Laguna Niguel, is admitting that there would still be enough willingness to pay the tolls to justify approving the toll roads.  It just confuses me when in many other parts of the world, more tolls and costs are being added onto driving to try and make the system more sustainable, yet some are still being voted down, not because of the cost for drivers, but because of what seems like bureaucratic reasons.

The article can be found here:

http://www.ocregister.com/news/toll-375363-lane-lanes.html