Anthony Foxx asks Congress to end ban of tolls on interstate highways

[pbrower2a]

The marginal cost of another car on a rural expressway is typically zero. The benefit is that people don't  shunpike by taking slower but more dangerous highways. One of the effects of the Interstate system is that the infamous "Blood Alleys" lose much traffic.

The Interstate Highway System has paid for itself alone by reducing highway fatalities and crippling injuries. That's before we discuss reduced costs of shipping, time saved, augmented business activity, and real-estate development.

The justification for tolls remains for highways that are unusually costly to build  due to engineering costs, environmental damage, or real-estate acquisition -- or that the highway largely serves people from out of the area.

Tolls reduce highway use. Just contrast the rather-lightly traveled Indiana Toll Road to Interstate 94 about 30 miles away in Michigan.

[pbrower2a]

Trial balloon.

It's time to contemplate raising the fuel taxes.

[pbrower2a]

One possible solution is to impose "highway cost recovery" fees on vehicles that do not use or rarely use motor fuels. Fuel taxes are a user fee.

Tolls are a terribly-inefficient way in which to pay for highways.     

[pbrower2a]

One possible solution is to impose "highway cost recovery" fees on vehicles that do not use or rarely use motor fuels. Fuel taxes are a user fee.

Tolls are a terribly-inefficient way in which to pay for highways.     

So, tolls are an inefficient funding mechanism, but fuel taxes, which by their very nature shrink their own revenue base, are not? Explain please.

Tolls require infrastructure just for collecting tolls, whether toll booths or some system of electronic pickpocket. Toll roads are more expensive to build because the interchanges (typically trumpet and double-trumpet interchanges that funnel traffic through a tollbooth) are more expensive than the typical diamond interchange of most freeways.  I have suggested some roads suited to tolling -- superhighways not used by the people who live in the area near the toll road, highways of freakish cost to build and maintain (typically bridges and tunnels). Many Interstate Highways are unsuited to tolling because of huge numbers of exits.

OK, so a toll bridge across the Hudson near New York City may have been paid for several times, but maintenance of it is fiendish. In general new urban routes might as well be toll roads due to the cost of land acquisition.

Some Interstates are literal replacements of previously-existing highways that are subsequently degraded or closed. As a prime example, Interstate 80 in Nevada fully supplants old US 40, most of which has been demolished. 

All taxes shrink their revenue base. Tolls push people onto dangerous alternatives.

Examples of highways that used to be toll roads:

Connecticut Turnpike
Merritt Parkway
Kentucky Turnpike
Western Kentucky Parkway
Bluegrass Parkway
Daniel Boone Parkway
Pennyrile Parkway
Jackson Purchase Parkway
Cumberland Parkway
Richmond-Petersburg Parkway
Virginia Beach Turnpike
Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike
Denver-Boulder Turnpike
several toll bridges near and in Jacksonville, Florida   

[pbrower2a]

I would have expected Louisiana at the top of the list of states with inadequate state highways per capita because of its extremely dense state highway network (it has highway numbers going into four digits) and a huge number of bridges California has a very thin net of state highways for its population size. To be sure, many of those (including most or all of 22, 24, 54, 57, 60, 85, 87, and 91) are Interstate-quality freeways. That's before I mention long segments of 14, 58, 99, and [US] 101.

Michigan proves surprisingly good -- until one realizes how thin the network of state highways is.

But as is my habit, here is a map. "Red" is for a high per capita cost of repairing roads (as in "STOP", and "green" (as in "GO") is for low costs per capita with yellow (as in "CAUTION") in the middle. Shades darken toward the extremes and lighten in the middle.

states     range
$1039                 90% saturation
$613- $700         70% saturation
$429- $467        60% saturation
$374 - $402       50% saturation
$309 - $334      40% saturation
$263 - $298      30% saturation (yellow)
$217- $237       40% saturation
$190 - $202      50% saturation
$141- $170        60% saturation
$115 - $129       70% saturation
$78 - $103         90% saturation

As you can see I am using gaps instead of round numbers. Some gaps are more obvious than others.

Conclusions follow in subsequent posts.
  

[pbrower2a]

A few comments:

1. The maintenance cost may be smaller per user on an eight-lane expressway (which may be structurally sound, but inadequate for the traffic load, but that is not the issue) than on some blacktop rural road that has hardly been altered since the 1940s. If tolls were necessary for breaking even for maintenance for a stretch of road, then the 'user fee' for a twenty-mile stretch of  an eight-lane expressway might be lower than that for some decrepit blacktop highway. A "state highway" could be an interstate-quality expressway (let us say, Massachusetts 3 south of Boston) or a gravel road. Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California may be infamous for heavy traffic -- and any pothole on a heavily-traveled road is likely to get attention because someone might call "Action News Six at Six" and some reporter might grill someone at the Highway Department about it.   

2. States may have advantages due to climate.  California and Arizona, most of which have very mild winters, may have highways far easier to maintain than highways in Maine, whose winters frost-heave roads.  Maine sticks out in its region.   

3. Gross inadequacy in the maintenance of roads is potentially dangerous. A bridge collapse under a loaded  bus could kill off participants in a school field trip or the high-school band or sports team. This is no triviality. Economic cost could be high in the form of brake jobs, wrecked tires, and shock absorbers.  Many of the roads with inadequate conditions are the infamous blood alleys.

Can we all accept that "Blood Alley" needs replacement, even if with an unglamorous alternative?  That includes blind curves, lethal rail crossings, and narrow bridges.

4. More tolls would be superfluous for maintaining existing roads in the states with the lowest deficiencies. That's not to say that new toll roads might be appropriate for meeting traffic needs, but that is a different story. For California, an application of 28 cents per day per person to inadequate infrastructure could solve that problem in one year. That's one of the better ones. For Texas, near the middle, the cost per capita would be about 72 cents per day.

For the worst, West Virginia -- it's almost $3 per day. Figuring that one person in four uses state highways, that is big trouble.

5. The "bad road" problem is most likely to appear on the more mundane two-lane routes. Tolling the few good roads (let us say the Interstates) to fund the improvement of inadequate rural routes could be very unpopular. But could a state put tolls on those dreadful two-lane blacktops? Those two-lane blacktops are the literal lifelines of many communities.

6. States at the top in inadequacy of their highways may be spending their highway funds badly. Do those states have malign priorities? Are those states spending all their highway funds on a few high-priority highways and neglecting the others?

Light traffic, severe climates, and long distances may explain Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. But at that, Nevada (very thinly populated except for Greater Las Vegas and Greater Reno-Carson City) is toward the middle. Minnesota is above average, and it is infamous for brutal winters. 

7. Before anyone sees a red-blue divide -- Idaho and Utah, both very R-leaning in politics, are above average in highway infrastructure. New Mexico is very Blue now, but its roads are apparently very bad.  Delaware, Maine, and (if one now considers Virginia a "blue" state) have awful infrastructure.

8. This might be relevant to the "Is Connecticut the Best State?" thread that I enjoy reviving.