- Florida's Turnpike Will Add Dynamically Priced Express Lanes to Palm Beach County Segment
- Virginia Has Potential Exposure to Millions in ERC Lost Revenue Claims
- Wyoming Lawmaker Says I-80 Tolling Proposal Has Legs, but Adoption Isn't Certain
- PA Lawmaker Believes Turnpike's Transit Subsidy Payments Are Subject to Legal Challenge
- Some Worry that Trump's Infrastructure Plan Might Never Materialize
- Newspaper's Editors Hit MTC for Meeting, Travel, and HQ Construction Spending
- Toll Rates Will Increase on Some Metro Austin Toll Roads in 2017
- Confederation Bridge Tolls Head Up
- Co-Chairs of New ATA Funding Task Force Call Interstate Tolls "Double Taxation"
- New Route Shouldn't Seriously Affect KTA's Bottom Line Say Newspaper's Editors
- WV Labor Department Fines Turnpike Painting Contractor for Not Hiring Enough State Residents
- Columnist Thinks Toronto Mayor Must Work Harder to Explain His Shift on Tolls
- Peace Bridge Gives Motorists a Christmas Gift
- Abertis Is Reportedly Buying Two India Toll Roads from Macquarie
- Irish Bridge's Toll Administration Expenses Scrutinized
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Florida's Turnpike Will Add Dynamically Priced Express Lanes to Palm Beach County Segment
Palm Beach Post reports, “Florida’s Turnpike is getting wider in some places — but in an unprecedented move drivers will pay more to access the new lanes. Yes, express lanes are planned for two stretches of Florida’s Turnpike in Palm Beach County, which means an additional fee to use them. With the new lanes, Florida will be the first state in the U.S. to enact an additional toll on top of an existing one.” The newspaper adds, “The work will be divided into two phases in Palm Beach County, with the stretch of turnpike from Glades Road to Atlantic Avenue growing from six lanes to 10, and from north of Boynton Beach Boulevard to the West Palm Beach service plaza growing from four lanes to eight.” The latter phase “would be completed first, with construction budgeted for 2018 and 2019. Construction for the section from Glades to Atlantic is budgeted for 2022.”
Express Lanes Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE)Virginia Has Potential Exposure to Millions in ERC Lost Revenue Claims
The Washington Post reports that Virginia’s decision to proceed with a $3.3 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion could expose it to “a major financial body blow” and demonstrate “the long-term consequences of mismanaging public-private partnerships. At issue are the highly generous terms of a tunnel deal that state officials agreed to in 2011 — and locked in for 58 years — with [the Elizabeth River Crossing project developers]. That agreement to build a new tube and rehabilitate tunnels between Norfolk and Portsmouth, and collect billions of dollars in tolls over coming decades, includes a non-compete clause” that exposes Virginia to potential liability for ERC toll revenue losses, if any. VDOT Secretary Aubrey Layne tells The Post “he’s unwilling to put a dollar figure on what the state could potentially owe for going ahead with the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel,” but the newspaper quotes estimates that the cost could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
Elizabeth River Tunnels Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT)Wyoming Lawmaker Says I-80 Tolling Proposal Has Legs, but Adoption Isn't Certain
KGAB reports, “A Republican legislator from Cheyenne,” Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (R-43), “says a proposal to make at least part of Interstate 80 [link deleted] in Wyoming a toll road is back. [He] notes the proposal to charge a toll to use I-80 has been around for years, adding ‘the same group of legislators who have been advocating it historically are back advocating it again.’” Zwonitzer tells the station “the funding challenges the state is currently facing may give the proposal impetus,” but he isn’t sure “the legislature as a whole is ready to pass it.” The lawmaker points out that a 2013 increase in the state gas tax (ten cents per gallon) hasn’t fulfilled the state’s need for highway maintenance funds.
WyomingPA Lawmaker Believes Turnpike's Transit Subsidy Payments Are Subject to Legal Challenge
The Daily American (subscription required) reports, “A portion of the tolls paid at Somerset’s Pennsylvania Turnpike booth funds mass transit in Philadelphia. In fact, about $450 million a year in turnpike toll money goes toward transit projects across the state. It’s a spending plan that State Rep. Carl Walker Metzgar, R-Somerset Township, finds intolerable. He believes a New York lawsuit may set precedent to repeal the plan and keep more of the turnpike’s estimated $1.1 billion in yearly revenue under turnpike control.” [Link added.]
Issues of Law Pennsylvania Turnpike CommissionSome Worry that Trump's Infrastructure Plan Might Never Materialize
Associated Press reports, “It’s not at all clear that President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to spend massively on infrastructure are going to unfold as he promised,” and “lately lobbyists have begun to fear that there won’t be an infrastructure proposal at all, or at least not the grand plan they’d been led to expect.” The AP adds, “In a post-election interview with The New York Times, Trump himself seemed to back away, saying infrastructure won’t be a ‘core’ part of the first few years of his administration. But he said there will still be ‘a very large-scale infrastructure bill.’”
Newspaper's Editors Hit MTC for Meeting, Travel, and HQ Construction Spending
The Mercury News editorial board writes, “If MTC wants drivers to pay more, its leaders should start showing they know how to responsibly spend a buck, or $5 billion that a $3 additional toll would raise over 25 years.” What sparked the editorial was MTC’s expenditure of about $13,500 for a commission and staff workshop at a hotel five blocks away from the agency’s “new $256 million office building in downtown San Francisco, which was funded largely with bridge toll money and ran 53 percent over budget.”
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)Toll Rates Will Increase on Some Metro Austin Toll Roads in 2017
KXAN reports that effective January 1, 2017, TxDOT “is increasing toll rates on [some metro Austin toll roads]. TxDOT operated tolls in Travis and Williamson counties are: SH 130 (Segments 1-4), State Highway 45 North, Loop 1 (from Parmer Lane to SH 45 North) and SH 45 Southeast. For most drivers, the 1.1 percent increase will mean an average increase of one cent per toll. The last time the rates went up on TxDOT operated tolls was in January 2015.” Click here for toll rate information.
Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Toll Rate ChangesConfederation Bridge Tolls Head Up
CBC News reports, “The annual adjustment of tolls on the Confederation Bridge has been announced by Strait Crossing Bridge Limited. The round trip tolls for two axle vehicles will go up 50 cents to $46.50 [approximately US$34.40] on the bridge linking Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. There will also be a 50 cent increase on vehicles with additions axles, or pulling trailers, the price per axle will move from $7.50 to $8 [about US$5.90].” Toll rates are contractually adjusted according to changes in the consumer price index, CBC notes.
Canada Prince Edward Island Toll Rate ChangesCo-Chairs of New ATA Funding Task Force Call Interstate Tolls "Double Taxation"
The Hill features a blog post by two trucking company CEOs who maintain that a recent call to eliminate federal restrictions on the tolling of existing interstate highways is “deeply misguided.” “Nationwide tolling, which would impose an additional tax on the 70 percent of goods moved by trucks, would be a disaster for the economy,” write authors Jim Burg and David Congdon. They argue, “America’s interstates were built using tax revenue, and fuel taxes have paid to maintain them since. Any new toll is double taxation.” Burg and Condon are the co-chairmen of the American Trucking Associations’ new Infrastructure Funding Task Force “committed to exploring many options to find a long-term financing solution that will address our nation’s transportation needs.”
New Route Shouldn't Seriously Affect KTA's Bottom Line Say Newspaper's Editors
Lawrence Journal-World editors dive into the Kansas Turnpike Authority’s annual report to come up with data explaining why the new South Lawrence Trafficway “should have minimal impact” on the authority’s annual toll revenue. The road is an alternative to the turnpike for motorists driving between Topeka and the Kansas City suburbs.
Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA)WV Labor Department Fines Turnpike Painting Contractor for Not Hiring Enough State Residents
MetroNews reports, “For the first time since the West Virginia Jobs Act was passed by the Legislature in 2001 to encourage skilled residents to be hired for state-contracted jobs, the state Labor Department has written a violation.” [Link added.] The department fined International Rigging, the low bidder on a million-dollar painting project awarded by the state Parkways Authority, $34,000, according to the report. Greg Barr, general manager of the West Virginia Parkways Authority, tells MetroNews, “What happened in this instance is when [the Florida-based contractor] filed their certified payrolls, they didn’t have hardly any West Virginia workers on the job.”
West Virginia Parkways Authority (West Virginia Turnpike)Columnist Thinks Toronto Mayor Must Work Harder to Explain His Shift on Tolls
Toronto Sun columnist Lorrie Goldstein traces the evolution of Mayor John Tory’s stand on highway tolls and concludes that the present controversy over Tory’s plan to toll GTA parkways is tied to Tory’s own harsh reaction to the idea in past campaigns. “In the world of realpolitik, Tory is proposing a change from the status quo, one he publicly opposed while running for mayor just two years ago. Given that, it’s incumbent on the mayor to satisfy not just council, but Torontonians who oppose tolls, that his latest position favouring them is a sound idea both from a traffic and financial perspective.”
Canada OntarioPeace Bridge Gives Motorists a Christmas Gift
WKBW reports that the Peace Bridge waived tolls on Christmas Day. “It normally costs three U.S. dollars to cross the bridge from U.S. into Canada,” the station notes.
Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge AuthorityAbertis Is Reportedly Buying Two India Toll Roads from Macquarie
Livemint.com reports, “Spanish infrastructure firm Abertis Infraestructuras SA has agreed to buy two operational toll road assets in south India from Macquarie Group Ltd for about Rs1,000 crore [approximately US$147.6 million], said two people familiar with the development. Abertis has signed a share purchase agreement to buy the two build, operate and transfer (BOT) toll roads, the Farukhnagar-Jadcherla highway . . . and the Trichy Tollways project . . . , the two said on condition of anonymity as the talks are private.”
IndiaIrish Bridge's Toll Administration Expenses Scrutinized
The Sunday Times (London) (subscription required) reports, “One in every four euros paid by motorists to use the M50 West-Link toll bridge last year was spent on administering the charge. Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), a state agency, took in €137m from motorists on the Dublin ring road in 2015, but less than a quarter of this remained to be invested back into the road network following administrative expenses, tax and a €50m annual payment to the private company that previously operated the West-Link toll.”
Ireland