With the help of a facilitator brought in by Caltrans officials, transportation agencies in Orange and Riverside counties have agreed on the order of 91 Freeway construction projects leading up to a bridge feeding the 241 Toll Road directly into the 91 Express Lanes.

With more people living in the Inland Empire, yet still working in Orange County, traffic on the 91 Freeway has swelled; on average, 325,000 cars a day pass the county line on the 91 Freeway. Traffic jams for merging onto the eastbound 91 from the 241 easily back up to the Windy Ridge toll plaza, delaying drivers by upwards of an extra half hour.

Officials with the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which manages Orange County’s toll roads including the 241, have wanted to bridge the gap between the 241 and the express lanes heading east – pressing for an opening as early as 2023 – but Orange County Transportation Authority and Riverside County Transportation Commission authorities have been adamant their plans for fixing choke points on the 91 Freeway needed to be prioritized, and dumping drivers from the 241 onto the express lanes first would only further gum up the traffic.

With the clock ticking and warnings being passed around, officials in May agreed to hire the third-party facilitator who helped organize discussions on the sticking points, including who would pay for the project; how much would a driver spend on the tolls; and how soon would the bridge be built.

The third-party facilitator also helped the agencies “take a step back and see the big picture,” TCA spokeswoman Kit Cole said.

The agencies’ staffers agreed upon the framework of a plan in September, and now their boards are reviewing the terms in meetings over the next two months.

“This is a great example of all the agencies coming together,” Mark Murphy said at OCTA’s Executive Committee meeting on Oct. 7, where the framework received a unanimous recommendation. Murphy is a member of the OCTA and TCA board and is mayor of Orange. “Finally, we have something in writing that’s clear and concise so everyone has the same set of expectations.”

The TCA boards will review the deal on Thursday, Oct. 10, and OCTA board members will discuss the agreement on Oct. 28. The Riverside commission will be the last when it votes on Nov. 13.

Caltrans, which owns the state highway system and would build the connector bridge with money from the TCA, is expected to soon finalize its environmental analysis for the project, after which design can begin.

Under the framework, TCA would wait to build the project until RCTC and OCTA are done with two projects: ramps connecting the 91 Express Lanes to the I-15 and a new westbound lane on the 91 from Green River Road to the 241 Toll Road.

With those two projects expected to be done by 2022, the TCA would likely start building the bridges in 2023 and have them open by 2025, two years later than the TCA initially planned. Around the same time, RCTC would have a flyover ramp replace the eastbound 91 Freeway hairpin-turn offramp to the northbound 71 Freeway.

“Our No. 1 goal was to have the project get done,” Cole said. “We are now on that track, so we are happy with what the schedule looks like.”

RCTC and OCTA will also get ample time to submit any concerns as Caltrans finalizes its environmental analysis of the bridges and Caltrans and the TCA get the project designed.

Caltrans will build and TCA will fund the bridges, estimated to cost $180 million, with possible help from sources such as California’s gas tax.

OCTA and RCTC will manage how much drivers will pay to use the bridges – the rates could be calculated in real-time depending on the traffic and there could be a carpool discount, OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik said.

The revenues would first go toward paying for operations, maintenance and debt incurred for building the bridges, then toward projects that would improve the traffic in the corridor.

The framework is just the first step in a process that will take years. All of the agencies may need to sign as many as eight or nine agreements laying out the project’s details, OCTA CEO Darrell Johnson said.

But RCTC Executive Director Anne Mayer said the framework marks an important milestone in the agencies’ plans for the 241/91 corridor.

“We can keep the traffic moving the best we can,” she said, “instead of creating more congestion.”