S&P highlights success of Californian managed lanes project

5426 Standard & Poor (S&P) has given Orange County Transportation Agency’s (OCTA) SR91 link one of the highest ratings for managed highway lanes in the world. S&P’s upgraded the SR91 Express Lanes Toll Revenue Bonds to 3440 AA-. The bonds were issued last year to refund bonds that were issued in 2003 when OCTA acquired the SR91 Express Lanes project from the private consortium that developed the project under California’s prior P3 law. The 91 Express Lanes is a four-lane, 16km toll road built in the median of California’s Riverside Freeway, State Route 91, between the Orange/Riverside County line and the Costa Mesa Freeway, SR 55. This was notable for being the first privately financed toll road built in the US in more than 50 years and the world's first fully automated toll facility, according to the S&P report. S&P analysts cited an expectation that the region's fundamental economic and demographic trends will continue to support growth for the upgrade, and that traffic and revenue performance will meet or exceed projected levels. Annual traffic volume in the corridor grew to 12.1 million vehicles in fiscal 2013 from 5.5 million in 1996, according to the report.