Paying to Improve Roads Is Highway Robbery

Re “OCTA to Pay Tollway for Right to Add Freeway Lanes,” March 12:

Having to pay tollway operators $40,000 a year for the right to make freeway improvements is unfortunate, but I wonder what it would cost us to improve the Laguna Freeway between the San Diego Freeway and the San Joaquin Hills toll road. The Laguna Freeway is one of California’s 10 most dangerous roads, and its improvement would certainly save lives.

This proposal is already on the books, and even environmentalists are supportive since realigning the highway would reunite two small, natural lakes. But this would siphon off many paying customers, so I suspect tollway accountants would demand an extremely high compensation price. That would be a shame, pitting the interests of toll-road bondholders against lives saved from a safer highway.

Steve Hirashiki

Laguna Niguel

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How can we continue to permit OCTA to be held up? It is certainly highway robbery when the authority must pay $40,000 a year for the right to improve the San Diego Freeway--immediately after agreeing to pay $4 million to add a 1,000-yard westbound access lane on the Riverside Freeway. When will taxpayers be forced to pay Federal Express for the right to improve the Postal Service?

Yvonne Mitchell

Placentia