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Follow TURFStates turn to tolls to fund roads
NOTE: Peter Samuel makes his living off toll roads and so does HNTB. Both seem to want states to continue to starve the gas tax so they can force more toll roads, particularly using public private partnerships (PPPs) that give toll operators monopolies and guaranteed profits that charge toll rates of 75 cents a mile like two deals in Dallas. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has it right, tolling existing roads and bridges is tantamount to DOUBLE TAXATION.
States turn to tolls to fund roads
By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
August 3, 2010
Toll roads are increasingly emerging as the go-to strategy for states and metro areas eager to build and maintain expressways amid a recession that has battered government budgets.
"There's more interest in tolling today than there has been" in more than three decades, says Jack Finn, national director of toll services with the Kansas City-based consulting firm HNTB.
A traditional main source of road funding — gasoline taxes — has eroded as motorists drive fewer miles and more fuel efficient vehicles. The Obama administration opposes increasing the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal share of the gas tax. It has been at that level since 1993. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says that public-private partnerships and tolling are additional ways to support transportation projects.
"There is something of a trend for local governments, especially state, but also counties and in some cases, metropolitan areas, to do tolling," says Peter Samuel, editor of TollRoadsNews.com, a newsletter on tolling. "It's resistance to raising the gas tax."
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Local governments are getting the message. "There's a paucity of money at the state and federal level," says Lloyd Robinson, a Fredericksburg, Va., official working on a new toll road near Interstate 95. "If we are going to help ourselves, we need to raise more revenue. One of the ways to do that is to have toll roads."
Among recent projects:
• The governors of Illinois and Indiana in June signed an agreement to move forward with the Illiana Expressway, a toll road that would connect Interstate 65 in Indiana with Interstates 55 and 57 in Illinois.
• Authorities in Louisville and southern Indiana recently said tolls could generate more than half the $4.1 billion needed to build two new bridges across the Ohio River and refurbish a major highway interchange. Drivers currently pay no toll.
• Tolling is funding three major road projects under construction or planned in the Washington, D.C., area: the Inter-County Connector, an 18-mile, 6-lane limited access road in Maryland; four new lanes on a 14-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway, and converting two express lanes to three on 28 miles of the I-395/I-95 freeway, both in Northern Virginia.
• North Carolina, which began construction last year on its first modern toll road, is spending more than $6 million studying how to pay for much-needed improvements to a 182-mile stretch of Interstate 95 in the state. "We have to wait for the study to be completed so we can have an educated conversation about whether tolling is an option," says Greer Beaty, spokeswoman for the state transportation department.
• Birmingham, Ala., Mayor William Bell is considering tolling as a way to reopen a 74-year-old bridge over Lake Purdy that's been closed since December. Under a $4 million plan, a private company would rebuild Grants Mill Road bridge as a toll bridge at no cost to the city.
• Transportation officials in the Fredericksburg, Va., area last month moved ahead with a plan to build a new I-95 interchange and toll road. Tolls would pay about half the $300 million cost, says Robinson, administrator of the Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.
• States are pressing Washington to change federal rules that limit their ability to toll on interstate highways. "In the last two or three months, there's been a real surge of interest in this topic," says transportation policy consultant David Hartgen, of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
"Public officials are coming to the realization that building the interstates was the easy part," says Patrick Jones, executive director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association. "It's going to cost way more to repair and rehabilitate it, and the funds are simply not available."
Tolls for the new or proposed projects vary: 25 cents per mile during rush hour on the first section of the Inter-County Connector; $3 each way across the bridges in Louisville, and $1 on the Fredericksburg road.
New toll projects usually generate fierce opposition. In Louisville, toll opponents staged rush-hour protests. "We are opposed to tolls on existing bridges," says Shawn Reilly, co-founder of Say No to Bridge Tolls. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, a trucking group with about 154,000 members, also opposes adding tolls on existing roads and bridges. "We consider that double taxation," spokeswoman Norita Taylor says.