Posted on 01/03/2005 5:12:11 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
CorridorWatch Member NEWS (01.03.05)
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HAPPY NEW YEAR! IN 2005 TOLLS ARE ALREADY A HOT TOPIC
As the new year started the news across the country has been filled with complaints and issues surrounding tolls and toll roads. No not in Texas but in places where drivers are supposed to freely accept toll roads, like Illinois and Pennsylvania.
Seems that states who have much more history with toll project than Texas are discovering that toll roads are not necessarily the solution to highway funding woes.
NON-TRIVIAL PURSUIT
Q: Who has the most expensive toll road in North America?
A: Ontario, Canada. 407-ETR a concession toll road. Major equity partner, Cintra.
Q: Who has the most expensive toll road in the United States?
A: Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago Skyway a concession toll road. Operator, Cintra.
Q: Who has Texas selected to build at least 300 miles of new toll roads?
A: Cintra.
THE NEW YEAR IS TAKING A GREATER TOLL
A headline in yesterday’s Sun-Times (IL) reads, “Doubling of rates sets off some toll-road rage.” That was the reaction when cash tolls on the Illinois State Toll Roads (not a concession) jumped from 40-cents to 80-cents (the new cash rate is now 6-cents per mile). Happy New Year!
The Chicago Skyway, already the most expensive toll road in America, celebrated the New Year by raising tolls another 25-percent. Under a 2004 concession agreement Cintra can double toll charges during the first 10-years of its 99-year lease. They’re off to a quick start.
High tolls and collection issues spark conflict with Cintra consortium in Ontario where the provincial government has taken the concession company to court over toll increases. Officials believed that the complex agreement protected them from excessive toll increases, but the toll road concessionaire interpreted the agreement differently. So far the courts have agreed with the company.
In 1999 the "ETR Consortium" bid $3.1 billion to purchase the 407 ETR, making it the largest privatization deal in Canadian history. 407 ETR Concession Company Ltd purchased the right to own and operate Highway 407 ETR for 99 years, along with the obligation to finance, design and build the west and east partial extensions of the highway. The 600+ page contract wasn’t made available to the public until 2002.
Ontario has seen a steady increase in complaints about their Cintra consortium toll road. So many in fact that their Transportation Minister has ordered a highway review. The government even established a 407 Review website.
http://www.407review.gov.on.ca
PA TOLL ROADS CRITICIZED FOR COST & LACK OF RETURN
An article appearing in Pittsburgh’s Tribune-Review yesterday details how toll road expansions in that state have resulted in multiple toll hikes and still fall short of the revenues required to complete the new roads. Now they are looking for another revenue source - - a gasoline-tax increase.
In 1992 Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey called the Ross Highway "an expressway to economic opportunity." However, more than a dozen years later the highway has never lived up to expectation nor has it delivered on the predicted economic benefits.
A former public utility commissioner is quoted as recently saying, “The Turnpike Commission is behaving as if its main mission is to deliver pork to certain interests and politicians."
There’s a lot we could learn from these examples before making the same mistakes on our own 4,000-mile Texas size boondoggle.
The entire article can be found at:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/s_288437.html
CINTRA SAYS TX TOLLS MAY BE 4 TIMES HIGHER THAN PA & NJ TOLLS
While residents of Pennsylvania protest their 5.8-cents per mile tolls and Illinois drivers exhibit toll-rage at 6-cents per mile, Texas will soon saddle its drivers with monster tolls.
During last months press conference Cintra indicated that the TTC tolls would likely range between 10 and 20-cents per mile. That’s significantly higher than most turnpike projects in the country.
According to yesterday’s Tribune-Review article, Pennsylvania and Florida turnpikes have the highest toll costs for passenger vehicles. Nine states have turnpike toll rates below 5-cents per mile. New Jersey is at a nickel, PA at 5.8-cents and Florida 6-cents per mile.
The article graphic can be found at:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/pages/newsextra/0102tcompare.pdf
Texas drivers can look forward to shelling out somewhere between $31.60 and $63.20 on the first 326-mile section of TTC-35 (one-way, passenger car). By contrast the 369-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike crosses the entire state with a toll of only $21.25 (one-way, passenger car).
Using TxDOT and Cintra’s own numbers to do the calculations, we see that using the Trans Texas Corridor will cost the average driver a toll that’s equal to between $2.21 and $4.42 per gallon tax. Today that same driver pays only 38.4-cents per gallon in gasoline tax. Of course Corridor drivers will need to pay both, a combined toll/tax cost of between $2.59 and $4.80 per gallon.
HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Yesterday or the day before, a local Pittsburgh TV reporter followed one of the esteemed members of the PA Turnpike Commission around asking him questions about all his relatives who work for ridiculous salaries for the Turnpike Comm. His brother-in-law is a plumber on the payroll and the reporter kept asking the guy what about this relative and that relative, on and on. He looked smugly right into the camera with each question and told us taxpayers how each of these relatives were worth that salary and more and if he had more good hard-working relatives they'd be on the payroll too. The arrogance of the guy was really amazing. Most cockroaches run when someone shines the light on them. These people KNOW there is not one damned thing PA taxpayers can do about the commission and choose to rub our noses in it.
Maybe it's time for a new political party to take over in Pennsylvania--not Republicans or Democrats, but, say, Constitution Party?
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. You might be trading one big government wet dream for another.
I already vote that way when I have an opportunity but I think it really is futile. PA is in the clutches of the Republicrats and the best bet is to vote with your feet.
Or your wheels. Just don't drive on the turnpikes.
The Turner turnpike was built in the 50's along route 66. Yet just inside the toll both gates, the roadside business corridor stops abruptly. Where the free I-35 has massive roadside business (and it's associated tax base), just across the toll booth has none. All of this occured after the toll road was built in the 50's.
The other end of I-44 is the same. On the Will Rogers turnpike, the countryside is lonely. But just on the other side of the OK border, roadside business has blossomed all over.
A few comparative pictures would tell a thousand words.
Another point needs to be spread to the voters. If there are toll roads, where is the incentive to keep the free roads in repair. Since the toll roads will be bringing in taxes, the government will have incentive to let the existing free roads fall into disrepair, if not close them outright.
This is similar to the toll lanes on the 91 "freeway" west of Corona California, where the government has an incentive to never keep adequate free lanes, because they receive tax money on the toll lanes. These lanes are just in the mountain pass, where there are no alternatives to that road. Nice.
Good free roads create economic development. Toll roads are a long run economic drain, because they discurage travel except from widely separated points. No off-ramp businesses or housing is developed.
Someone should do a real economic analysis on this, and I suspect that the long term bennefits to the tax base and economy is negative. This is a stupid idea, both for the people and for government itself.
Check out Phoenix. We've added lots of new freeways, and the economy is growing like no tomorrow. Someone proposed a toll road for the East Valley, but it got shot down in flames.
Travel creates an economy. The country developed along rivers and the coast because it offered a method of travel. Any dis-incentive to travel dampens it, and thus the economy.
Thanks for the ping!
I'm just curious as to why toll road owners don't just put numerous exits off the toll road. That would certainly be better for business, as well as for travelers who have a greater variety of options for exits. I suspect people would be more willing to pay for these roads if they had more exits. Just a question.
You're welcome.
Costs more money to handle the different tolls for different exists.
Even with more exits, it's just natural for people to avoid spending money when they don't have to. Quite a lot of economic activity is "impulse". And if you discurage travel, then the opportunity for impulse buying declines. Thus any toll road will have less effect on economic activity than a free road, even with the same number of exits.
Thanks for the intolerance! "DAVID STALL FOR GOVERNOR "!!!!!(Tx)
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