Free Republic

A final plan for tolls for users along the future Interstate 10 Bridge and Bayway could be known in July, a state transportation official said Friday. It will be unveiled ahead of the August release of the final environmental impact statement on the entire $2.1 billion project. But at least one state lawmaker says more time is going to be needed to hash out tolls and their impact on local motorists. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for the experts and the work being done by the state DOT,” said state Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Daphne. “But it’s probably fair...

Opposition to tolling the future Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and the Wallace Tunnel dominated the public comments during Tuesday’s hearing into the massive $2.1 billion project. From local politicians to business owners, the message to the Alabama Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration was clear: A $3 to $6 toll will place enormous burdens on drivers and workers in Mobile and Baldwin counties, and it won’t fly with the rest of the public either. “It’s a huge expense,” said Roger Nelson of Daphne, who commutes daily to work to downtown Mobile. “It will be passed on.” Said...

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Build America Bureau has finalized a direct loan of $225 million for the Interstate 10 Corridor Project, a critical step forward for one of the most highly anticipated regional transportation and mobility improvements in Southern California. Construction will begin in early 2020 on the four-year project in San Bernardino County, which will include the installation of express lanes (also known as toll lanes) between the Los Angeles County line (near Montclair) and Interstate 15 (just west of Fontana). The low-interest federal loan, which closed on May 3, is through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation...

With an estimated cost of about $787 million, a public-private partnership on a tolled four-lane Interstate 49 extension from Alma to Fort Smith with a bridge over the Arkansas River has been deemed “not viable” by the Arkansas Department of Transportation. Results of the I-49 Alternative Delivery Study, approved by the Arkansas Highway Commission in 2016, were presented Wednesday at the Frontier Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Policy Board meeting. Andrew Brewer, assistant division engineer for ARDOT, said a tolled 14-mile extension was deemed “not viable” based on projected costs and revenue. “The bottom line is assuming an optimal toll rate of...

Toll lane plans for parts of the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270 are set to move forward next week, including plans for improvements to the American Legion Bridge. Maryland’s Board of Public Works — Gov. Larry Hogan, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot — is set to formally designate the planned toll lanes as a public-private partnership on May 8 and to support plans for separate phases of construction. Once the public-private partnership designation is approved, the state expects to quickly issue a request for qualifications from private companies so that a short list of the private firms or...

MARYLANDERS STUNNED by rush-hour traffic on the Capital Beltway, brace yourselves: Your commute is on track to get much, much worse. Roughly 30,000 more vehicles will be using Maryland’s portion of the highway each day by 2040, on top of the current 253,000, meaning cars and trucks will creep along at an average speed of 14 mph between Bethesda and College Park — a 10-mile segment that will take 43 minutes. That’s part of the impetus for a bold plan Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has advanced that would add up to four toll lanes to the Beltway and Interstate 270....

Shortly after moving to northern Brazoria County, Evan Moskowitz noticed there was something odd about Texas 288. “I mean, it’s huge,” Moskowitz said, noting the four-lane highway’s enormous grass median and wide shoulders. “You could fit two freeways there.” Pretty soon, there will be, a nod to explosive growth in southern Harris and northern Brazoria counties and the constant need for faster trips into key workforce centers, including the Texas Medical Center. Crews are in the home stretch of construction of two toll lanes in each direction from Interstate 69 to the Brazoria County line — more than 10 miles...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The head of the Maryland Transportation Authority has abruptly resigned. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that no reason for his departure was publicly released. Kevin C. Reigrut oversaw the state’s eight toll facilities. He led the 1,700-employee agency since January 2017.

RICHMOND — Interstate 81’s heart pumps through rural Virginia with veins that run from Tennessee to the Canadian border — a vital roadway for manufacturers, farmers and commuters. With a long track record of crashes and congestion, Virginians looked to legislators for solutions to improving the interstate. But Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, said the General Assembly passed only “a shell of a bill.” At the beginning of the session, Gov. Ralph Northam met with legislators to announce bipartisan support for finding a revenue source for improvements to Virginia’s 325-mile stretch of I-81, which accounts for 42 percent of statewide interstate...

I recently had the privilege of representing residents in eastern Connecticut that were opposed to the construction of the proposed state police gun range immediately adjacent to Pachaug State Forest. I personally thanked Gov. Ned Lamont for keeping his word in opposing this project. In politics, you are only as good as your word. That is why Lamont must also keep his word and not institute tolling on cars in Connecticut. Leaders in Hartford are missing the mark when it comes to tolling. They always seek to find alternate revenue sources through taxes or fees before first examining priorities, spending...

WASHINGTON — Efforts to alleviate traffic for tens of thousands of D.C.-area commuters were approved Wednesday, but not before Maryland attempted to eliminate a provision pushing for uniform tolling practices across the region’s express lanes. The resolution adopted by the region’s Transportation Planning Board is the first concrete action toward new goals developed over the last two years to reduce traffic jams and get people from home to work or other activities faster and with more efficiency. “The first step, a concrete effort, toward the projects, programs and policies this region [will] fund and implement in the coming years,” said...

As part of its controversial plan to widen the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270, Maryland says it intends to focus on the implementation of toll lanes — as many as four on each highway — and abandon earlier considerations of more general-purpose lanes, bus rapid transit and bus-only lanes. Maryland transportation officials have narrowed the number of possible construction alternatives to seven from an original list of 15 for further study of potential toll operations in the two corridors that suffer some of the worst traffic congestion in the region. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in September 2017 proposed widening the...

A proposal to build a Cross Downtown Brooklyn Tunnel, an idea studied by the state in 2010, is sparking new interest. As the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street faces a massive, $3.4 billion reconstruction, a once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity has opened, says longtime Cobble Hill community leader and graphic designer Roy Sloane. Sloane came up with the tunnel concept at a planning session in June 2010. Sloane, former president of the Cobble Hill Association, is the first to admit he is not an engineer. He was, however, a member of the original Brooklyn-Queens Expressway Advisory Committee and...

Gov. Ralph Northam announced Friday that Virginia has selected a contractor to build two new tunnels and widen a major highway in Hampton Roads. The $3.3 billion price tag — funded by regional gas and sales taxes, tolls and other sources — makes it one of the two biggest transportation projects in commonwealth history. Northam (D) touted the deal, saying he is “proud of the hard work and negotiations that have taken place over this past year,” and state Sen. Frank W. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) in return offered praise for the embattled governor. “I want to personally thank Governor Northam...

AUSTIN, Texas — Deep in the heart of Texas is an artery that's been clogged for decades. According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the portion of Interstate 35 that runs through downtown Austin is the third-most congested highway in Texas. About a quarter of a million cars in the Austin area use it daily. Gabrielle Guevara, a New Orleans native who works as a nurse at the Austin Cancer Center in Georgetown, drives on I-35 every day. She describes her commute home as "frustrating." "When I first moved here in August, I thought it was going to be about...

(WLUK) -- Republican legislative leaders say toll roads could be the answer to generating needed money for road repairs. The idea was brought up during a round-table discussion at a Wisconsin Counties Association meeting last Wednesday. Both Republicans and Democrats still have a lot of questions about the plan. Local leaders are ready to hit the pavement when it comes to finding a solution for fixing streets and infrastructure, and some republicans believe tolls may be the answer. "This is an idea that's been around for years, but it hasn't been talked about with any depth within the group of...

President Donald Trump called for a bipartisan effort to pass an infrastructure bill in his latest State of the Union speech. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao echoed the same sentiments shortly after the speech. Yet both failed to provide a few details as to what ought to be included in such a bill, and leaving the details to Congress is problematic. So far, most congressional discussions on any infrastructure bill have focused on ways to fund more federal spending. Letting Washington simply throw more dollars at roads and bridges, however, is a bad idea. Whatever we spend, politicians should take...

Imagine driving along a four-lane elevated causeway above the brackish San Pablo Bay, shaving more than an hour off the normal Highway 37 commute. Transportation planners have for years envisioned remaking the 20-mile route from Novato to Vallejo into the North Bay’s most important east-west corridor. Now, they are ready to act. Officials in Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties have been meeting for several years, pondering solutions to Highway 37’s notorious bottlenecks, where 45,000 cars per day stretch the normal 20-minute commute to as much as 100 minutes. They have also acknowledged that traffic improvements will be irrelevant without...

Nearly a dozen stakeholders representing local governments and the freight and commuter sectors on Feb. 7 urged a House transportation panel to identify a sustainable source of funding for an infrastructure bill. As the panel prepares to craft legislation, lawmakers agreed infrastructure policy should top their priorities this year. Yet, they continue to differ on a way forward for ensuring the sustainability of the dwindling Highway Trust Fund. The idea that former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to consider is increasing and indexing the fuel tax by about 10 cents. Doing so, LaHood argued, would...

Professor of Finance for the College of Staten Island and Research Fellow at The University Transportation Research Center Johnathan Peters says if Connecticut lawmakers are looking to raise revenue for transportation, they might be better off looking somewhere else besides highway tolls. “Tolls, generally, are expensive to collect,” Peters said in an interview. “It’s not free. There’s a lot of technology and a lot of equipment, and that equipment will have to be maintained and replaced over time.” Peters -- whose area of expertise and study involves regional planning and road and mass transit financing -- says tolls are more...