Comments for Tolling Points

Comment on Adaptation and Resilience: The Tolling Industry Responds to Severe Weather by Patrick D. Jones: A Campaign That Makes Sense for America's Highways | USA Press

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 05:03:43 +0000

[...] talked about the lessons they’d learned from major weather disasters. A toll road can be a community lifeline in an emergency, and toll operators are ready and eager to help policy-makers develop best practices in emergency [...]

Comment on The Year of Moving Forward by Irvin Dawid

Irvin Dawid — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:44:34 +0000

OK, I’ll bite.
Is this tolling of particular roads – or tolling en masse, i.e. a VMT fee of some sort?
I can’t see how tolls on a particular road prevent us from driving over the fiscal cliff – though I do admit it helps those few roads where it is feasible.

Makes more sense to, in the short term, raise the gas tax, and in the long term, shift to VMT fee as GAO recommends in its Dec. report
http://gao.gov/assets/660/650863.pdf

Comment on Road Conditions Are a Global Problem by Edwin

Edwin — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:35:36 +0000

Interesting results. Having great roads and maintaining them should be of high importance to countries. You can see a massive difference between countries that do and countries that don’t. I remember travelling in Cambodia and it took 3-5 hours just to travel 250km due to the lack of an extra lane and potholes.

Better roads definitely equates to less accidents, but also saves a ton of time which means a lot more money saved. It’s good to see some concrete stats that back up these arguments. Hopefully more surveys like these will encourage more action in countries where it is needed.

Comment on Public-Private Partnerships: White Knights in Dark Economic Times by Daniel Dornan

Daniel Dornan — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:53:25 +0000

P3 consortia are considered “White Knights” by some and “Pied Pipers” by others. They are a little bit of both, which is why full transparency and accountability are required for these alternative ways to finance and deliver major infrastructure projects to succeed for both their public sponsors and private investors.

Comment on The Leadership Moment by ayshwariya

ayshwariya — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 06:28:44 +0000

I actually enjoyed reading through this posting.Many thanks.

Leadership Training Dubai

Comment on What Can We Do to Improve Road Safety? by Stephen Schaunt

Stephen Schaunt — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:58:03 +0000

Hmm, it is socially irresponsible to do distracting things while driving. Re-training, having tighter law regulations, and higher fines can help prevent this. But it should always start from ourselves. You should train yourself, too. What do you think?

Comment on What is the Future for Tolling U.S. Interstate Highways? by AlexHosting

AlexHosting — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:26:32 +0000

Thanks for opportunity to join group. I realize that Highway Users and IBTTA have different views on I-80 but we share enthusiasm on some core values, including need for safe and efficient roads. I enjoyed reading the previous comments and was pleased to see that my thoughts are inline with many other posters.

Comment on What New Tolling Ideas Would You Propose to Secretary LaHood? by Linda Spock

Linda Spock — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:21:57 +0000

I second Bob Poole's views about making the case for using tolls to rebuild roads as they near the end of their useful lives- IBTTA members can draw on Ed Regan's article in the current issue of Tollways and information presented at past IBTTA conferences e.g. at the 2007 Transportation Finance Summit, Gery Nielsten reviewed roadway math basics- construction cost per mile of roadway in the 1950s was between $1 and 2 million and as of 2007, this had escalated to $50 million per mile. There will be costs of delay in rebuilding roads and harmful effects on the economies that rely at every level on a viable transportation system to function and grow.

Comment on What is the Most Important Investment We Can Make Now? by Juan Domingo

Juan Domingo — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:34:56 +0000

The intelligent infrastructures Joshua, they are the immediate future and seen the events of the japón, the governments will not have any more remedy that to invest in it, but they want that similar events happen.

Juandon

Comment on What New Tolling Ideas Would You Propose to Secretary LaHood? by Bob Poole

Bob Poole — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:47:43 +0000

Secretary LaHood and Chairman Mica repeatedly make a key distinction when it comes to tolls on the Interstates. Both encourage tolling for new capacity (i.e., added lanes or entirely new routes) but oppose putting tolls on existing lanes. But that distinction ignores a critically important third category: tolls to reconstruct Interstate highways as they reach the end of their design lives. While this country does need additional lane capacity on some long-haul Interstates, and HOT or Express Toll Lanes on urban Interstates, by far the largest opportunity for Interstate tolling is to rebuild and modernize this aging system, as most parts of it reach or exceed 50 years of age over the next two decades.

The possible need for tolling to finance the reconstruction of worn-out Interstates was recognized by Congress in TEA-21, when it created a three-state pilot program allowing states to use toll finance for that purpose. That program was renewed in SAFETEA-LU. Critics will argue that since no state has implemented any such projects, the pilot program was a failure. But remember that both TEA-21 and SAFETEA-LU involved large increases in federal highway funding. State DOTs would rather take the easy way out if federal funding is readily available, rather than having to make the politically more difficult case for toll finance to rebuild a key Interstate. But that was then. In 2011, we are in a no-new-funding environment, in which highways will be doing good to retain the amount of Trust Fund money typical of pre-stimulus years. In this new fiscal environment, “toll road or no road” becomes an easier sell.

Therefore, I urge the toll road community to make the case that reconstructing worn-out Interstates is not “putting tolls on existing lanes,” because those existing lanes will soon be worn out and will need to be replaced—not at the “paid-for” price of 1960 but at today’s cost of construction. The existing three-state pilot program for toll-financed Interstate reconstruction should be broadened by removing the numerical limits altogether, making this critically important financing tool available to all states. At the same time, the law’s existing criteria on use of the toll revenues must be retained. Those provisions, which restrict the revenues to Interstate reconstruction, operations, and maintenance, were painstakingly negotiated with the highway user community (i.e., the customers), and groups such as AAA and the American Trucking Associations did not oppose them in either of the last two reauthorizations. Those provisions were what prevented Pennsylvania from “erecting tollbooths on I-80” in order to use the revenues as a general transportation funding source, including bailing out the transit systems of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. They ensure that Interstate tolling for reconstruction would be a true user fee, not an all-purpose transportation tax.