Free Republic

A summer getaway along Interstate 95 in Virginia could include extra backups the next few years now that construction is ramping up on a 10-mile extension of the HOV or toll 95 Express Lanes. Virginia and Transurban, the private builder and operator of the toll lanes, held a ceremonial groundbreaking Wednesday at the Stafford Regional Airport for the 95 Express Lanes Fredericksburg extension, a project they believe could significantly alleviate some regular backups from Garrisonville Road to the Rappahannock River. Until the $565 million project is finished in about three years though, hundreds of workers on the project mean drivers...

Taxpayers from all 50 states pay into the Highway Trust Fund when they fill their tanks with gas or diesel fuel. That sends billions of dollars a year to Washington, which then cuts checks to state governments in the form of infrastructure grants overseen by federal bureaucrats. It’s hard to tell just what shuffling so much money from one level of government to another is supposed to accomplish. In point of fact, the system creates many speed bumps that prevent our highway system from delivering the value it ought to. A Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Wednesday...

In this Policy Tip Sheet, Matthew Glans examines gasoline taxes, how they have become less effective over time, and why states can no longer rely on them to fund state transportation projects. Problem Gasoline taxes are an unreliable funding source for state transportation projects, road construction, and maintenance due to declining gasoline prices and more fuel-efficient vehicles. In 2015, Daniel Vock, writing for Governing, analyzed state gas tax data reported to the U.S. Census Bureau and found two-thirds of state fuel taxes failed to keep up with inflation. Moreover, gasoline taxes are regressive and produce widespread economic consequences. Increasing fuel...

Cash-strapped Connecticut is grappling with how to pay for transportation investments to prevent more than half of its roads and highways from falling into disrepair in the next decade. The answer, according to Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration, is highway tolls. Like most states in the Northeast, Connecticut previously used highway tolls to raise revenue. The state removed all tolls in the 1980s following a crash at a toll plaza that killed seven people. Now Mr. Lamont, a Democrat, is attempting to persuade a skeptical state Legislature to bring them back. Lawmakers declined to vote on tolls during this year’s legislative...

Ground was broken this month on an anxiously awaited highway project outside of Washington, D.C., one of the latest examples of the public and private sector acting as partners to advance critical state and local infrastructure projects. The June 6 launch of the Fredericksburg Extension Project – a 10-mile extension of express toll lanes on the Interstate 95 corridor in Northern Virginia nicknamed the “FredEx” – featured the leadership of a public-private partnership (P3) that will get the $565 million job done by the end of 2022. The state’s governor and its transportation secretary launched the project as the public...

Are tolls going to be enforced on private drivers? The German government, along with every car owner in the European Union, will finally get a definitive answer to that question on Tuesday. If the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules in favor of the tolls, all motorists will be charged to drive on German highways. The fees, known as "vignettes," are to be collected according to the time traveled on the autobahn. For cars registered in Germany, however, owners will get a credit deductible from the motor vehicle tax as compensation, meaning the costs would be offset, and ultimately, Germans...

Marin transportation officials were cautiously optimistic Monday after a recent court ruling upheld a major funding source for several local highway projects, but the funding could be in limbo because of appeals. “We have tremendous congestion and these projects are congestion relievers,” said Dianne Steinhauser, executive director of the Transportation Authority of Marin. “We hear from the public constantly about how bad the congestion is right now. We’re hoping that this money starts flowing. It’d be great to see it by the end of 2019.” Regional Measure 3, the June 2018 ballot measure that increases tolls for seven Bay Area...

ORLANDO, Fla.—The state dubbed it the I-4 Ultimate for its grand scope. For some here, it’s more like the ultimate headache. A reconstruction of 21 miles of congested interstate highway through the heart of Orlando will build or rebuild 140 bridges, redesign 15 interchanges, move exits and add new toll lanes, in a $2.3 billion project to smooth traffic through one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities. Dense cities have grown up around the aging freeways, hemming them in so that expensive engineering feats are needed to do work on them. Yet work is often unavoidable. I-4, for instance, was built...

Just last week, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz dismissed toll opponents as “emotional.” He claimed that they cling unthinkingly to “perceived details” such as that the number of gantries remain unfixed and the amount of revenue actually to be obtained from out-of-staters remains not only undetermined, but undeterminable. He did not mention, but could have, opponents’ continuing concerns about the eventual rate of tolls; about whether a state-wide, shared-sacrifice tolling structure will be authorized by the U.S. D.O.T. as promised, and what happens if it isn’t; and how much gross revenue from tolling will be eaten up by costs, which have...

America's interstate highway system, launched more than 60 years ago, now carries far more vehicles than it was originally built for and is in dire need of repairs and improvements. The U.S. has "taken a generation off" from investing in infrastructure, says Brian Pallasch, director of government relations at the American Society of Civil Engineers. And with Americans driving more than ever before, that's leading to problems like frustration-inducing congestion and costly car repair bills. "The roadways that we drive on every day put quite a toll on our vehicles," Pallasch tells Here & Now. "The average driver ... faces...

Maryland’s Board of Public Works approved the state’s use of private companies to widen highways in the Washington suburbs, but agreed to delay work on the Capital Beltway after running into opposition. The vote came during a lengthy and tense meeting Wednesday on Gov. Larry Hogan’s plan to enlist the private sector to widen the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270. The private contractors would recoup their investment through tolls charged on drivers who use the new lanes. The Hogan administration has sold the plan — known as a “public-private partnership” or P3 — as a way to alleviate traffic congestion...

A date for at least a bit of congestion relief has been set for commuters on I-405 between Bothell and Lynnwood. During the last session, state legislators approved the bonding of I-405 toll revenue, allowing the build-out of at least one highway project to begin sooner. Construction to widen I-405 between highways 522 and 527, which will add another express toll lane in each direction, will now start by 2021, according to Craig Smiley, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Transportation. The project also includes building direct access ramps from Highway 522 onto the express toll lanes, and...

WASHINGTON - Connecticut Democrats on Capitol Hill for the most part walk a fine line on proposed highway tolls, calling for more robust federal infrastructure spending but sidestepping clear support for Gov. Ned Lamont’s controversial measure. “Once the General Assembly and the Governor come to an agreement on how best to fund state transportation projects moving forward, I will work with state leaders in any manner necessary to further the goal of improving Connecticut’s infrastructure,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee. Recommended Video Lamont’s strongest supporter in Washington by far is Sen....

ACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The I-TEAM gets results for a Jacksonville driver who was puzzled after getting a bill in the mail from a toll road in Miami – as she doesn’t drive outside of Northeast Florida. What News4Jax learned highlights imperfections in the new, high-tech toll system coming to Jacksonville this year. When Jacksonville’s tolls came down in 1989, drivers paid at the familiar toll booths along expressways around Jacksonville and across the state. Now, with the latest advances with the SunPass system, drivers can pay tolls electronically without stopping. This system is coming to Jacksonville’s First Coast Expressway and...

The U.S. Interstate Highway System is the backbone of American commerce and personal travel. Funded on a pay-as-you-go basis largely through federal excise taxes on motor fuel, today it accounts for 25% of total vehicle-miles traveled despite accounting for just 2.5% of total road network lane-miles. Yet, much of the Interstate system, construction of which began in the 1950s, is nearing the end of its functional life, along with the infrastructure of other surface transportation modes. Over the next two decades, trillions of dollars of investment will be needed to rehabilitate and in some cases rebuild this infrastructure, according to...

AUBURNDALE — Florida has one of the world’s most famous asphalt ovals in the Daytona International Speedway. A slightly smaller track recently completed in Auburndale won’t draw massive crowds for races, but it’s part of a project that could hasten the day when self-driving vehicles take over the roads. Crews finished laying asphalt for the 2¼-mile oval — phase one of SunTrax — in early May, and construction will begin in the coming months on infield elements designed for the development and testing of connected and autonomous vehicles. The second phase of SunTrax, a project overseen by Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Imagine not being able to pay cash for some of the toll roads you use every day. It's already happened in and around Miami and near Tampa, but now it is going to be happening in Central Florida. The Florida Turnpike Enterprise confirmed that all Florida's Turnpike roadways are going to all-electronic tolling in a 70-mile stretch from Osceola County to Sumter County by next summer. According to FTE, the project will take place on Florida's Turnpike from Kissimmee Park Road at milepost 239 to I-75, which is at milepost 309. "They're going to continue on the...

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has a grand plan to expand I-4 well beyond the cones and lane shifts that drivers in Central Florida face today. However, those plans could be changing, in part, because of the lengthy delays of the current “I-4 Ultimate” expansion and the lack of answers being given to Congress about why it is taking so long. The I-4 Ultimate project was scheduled to be finished in 2021 with two toll lanes running in each direction down the center of the interstate from Kirkman Road south of Orlando to the Longwood rest area in Seminole...

Despite pleas from two former state governors and at least 90 environmental and community groups and businesses, Gov. Ron DeDantis on Friday signed a multibillion-dollar plan to build long stretches of toll roads across undeveloped sections of the state. The legislation has been labeled “the worst environmental bill in twenty years.” And the Florida Sierra Club has warned of pristine areas becoming urban sprawl, where “subdivisions and strip malls will proliferate and the natural resources that bring visitors to the state will be overused and overrun.” DeSantis approved the bill anyway. The announcement came not from the governor’s press office...

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority’s ability to build new toll roads may be temporarily stymied by opposition from state leaders, but the agency is keeping busy with major ongoing projects. While the great majority of its spending is on expanding roadway capacity for cars, CTRMA Executive Director Mike Heiligenstein emphasized the millions the agency is investing in bike and pedestrian infrastructure in a Tuesday presentation to the Travis County Commissioners Court. The $108 million construction of State Highway 45 SW, linking MoPac Expressway with FM 1626, will be accompanied by a 4.5-mile shared-use path, along with pedestrian and bicycle...