Just how much of MY MONEY does he think he is entitled to? Maybe if the state paid by the job and held the contractors to the budget and time in the contract instead of paying them by the hour (did you watch how long I-40 in west Knoxville?) No, there has to be a limit and I think our buddy Phil has passed it.

By Chip on 05.29.07 9:49 am

Toll roads would let a certain critical core of high traffic corridors continue to make money for pork projects throughout the rest of the state. The special ability of a toll road to make money comes from the fact that there is a contract with the state that assures the toll company that they will make a minimum profit, in the range of 12%,and will not be bothered by the legislature with rediculous demands for inefficient infrastructure for economic development purposes. Tolls are allowed to go up with inflation, unlike gas taxes. The toll comany is compensated for every instance that the state might do something to alter toll revenue and there is no way to break the agreement without paying a monster settlement.
Most roads in Tennessee are not tollable, that is, the traffic on the roads is not adequate to raise enough money to keep the road operational. One of the reasons TDOT is broke and has an embarrasingly high fatality rate is because TDOT continues to build these loser, low utility roads. The system works by income transfers from high traffic areas to low traffic areas. There is nothing wrong with that as long as the transfers take place in the open and with general agreement of the magnitude and direction that they are going. We don’t have that and no one seems to want that becase of the possibility of being held accountable.
Road maintenance and the addition of new lanes for capacity improvements are subject to inflation. The failure of the state to adjust gas taxes upward is one culprit in this toll road love affair. The inflation adjusted gas tax value which is 20 cents and has been since 1990, has dropped to below the value that it was in 1923 when the first gas tax was instigated.
In spite of this loss in financial capacity, the legislature still expects TDOT to build county seat connector roads, special road projects for Montgommery County, extra and gratuitous interchanges at locations where there is no factory and probably won’t be in the near or distant future, extensive non-highway spending on museums bike paths transit, trains and while nothing else is going on make sure everything stays drivable in 95 counties.
The toll companies will be the people to raise rates and let the legislaure skate free of their responsibility to oversee TDOT. The taxpayer will soon love to hate the toll comany instead of the legislature.
The only way to escape toll roads and increasing gas taxes is to go on an emergency asphalt diet. The purpose of this diet will be to raise the income per mile or income per lane mile of the average road in Tennessee. New Jersey has a state gas tax one half that of Tennessee and and per mile income more than ten times that of Tennessee. This means cancelling any new projects that have less than 8000 vehicles per day on it. It means a constitutional prohibition against interferrence from the legislature. It means an objective system of road project selection, not the one we have now that is heavily dependant upon subjective measures. It means losing millions of dollars in engineering and right-of-way acquisitions. It means concentrating on increasing mobility and safety but, it will probably eliminate 90% of all considerations of projects for economic development purposes. It will mean spending more money in urban areas for congestion relief even though urban areas already get special distributions for air quality concerns.
Toll roads are a big mistake because they will leave unchanged a broken system that would be an embarrassment to most third world counties. TDOT is already operating a toll system that uses gas stations instead of toll booths. That system was 14,301 miles long in 2004. Raising the gas tax is also a mistake because it will reward years of bad behavior from the governor’s office and the legislature. After the underlying problems of project selection and setting objective performance standards is achieved, we can address the question of taxes versus tolls or both.

By Danny L. Newton on 05.31.07 7:19 pm

I wonder if the Knox News Sentinel will investigate the campaign contributions made by toll road industry contractors and lobbyists like they did on big tobacco? Doubtful.

By kenic on 04.08.10 11:41 pm