Congestion Fuels a Renaissance : New Toll Roads May Fill Gap in Highway Finances

When the Dulles Toll Road, which connects the “beltway” around Washington, D.C., with Dulles International Airport, opened 3 1/2 years ago, many thought it would be a flop.

Why would motorists pay 85 cents to drive 13 miles on the toll road, critics asked, when there was a free, limited-access road running alongside and an interstate highway, also free, not far away?

But traffic on the Dulles now is so heavy--about 110,000 vehicles a day--that it will be widened from four lanes to six. A 17-mile addition is planned too.

The new toll road not only has provided easier access to the nation’s capital but also has helped to open up Fairfax County, where 80 million square feet of new office and commercial space have been built in recent years.

The Dulles is only one of many new toll roads that are popping up on the U.S. transportation map, as states, counties and cities search desperately for ways to finance new highways and to repair those they already have.

“Toll roads are now enjoying a renaissance in the United States,” Robert C. Schaevitz, vice president and chief economist for the Denver-based engineering firm of Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade & Douglas, told a national transportation conference recently. “They are being studied, designed and constructed at rates not seen since the 1940s and ‘50s.”

Fifty miles of new toll roads are in operation, or under construction, in the Houston area. The Dallas North Tollway has been so successful that an extension is planned. Florida has opened several new toll roads in recent years and more are on the drawing board. And Orange County hopes to build 60 miles of toll roads, along three separate routes, in the next five to 10 years.

Critics in Congress and elsewhere argue that toll roads amount to double taxation, since motorists first pay federal and state fuel taxes and other vehicle fees and then must pay again to use the roads.

There were loud protests in the California Legislature last year before a bill authorizing the Orange County toll roads was approved.

“Toll roads are a symbol of Eastern decadence,” state Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) said at the time. “This is the renaissance state, where we don’t make people stop their car and pay money to use the road. It’s a form of highway robbery.”

Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) said tax-supported freeways “are part of Southern California’s cultural identity” and called toll roads “an inefficient and stupid way to go.”

Despite these objections, toll roads seem to be gaining in acceptance, in California and in the nation, for two basic reasons:

First, the increasing suburbanization of America has created traffic-congestion nightmares in many suburban communities.

Second, there is no other practical way to pay for many of the new roads that are needed.

The 1980 Census found that 25 million people commuted from one suburb to another to reach their jobs, while only 12.5 million commuted from suburbs to central cities. That gap has continued to widen since 1980, experts say.

So the new facilities are not long-haul, intercity roads like the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the Ohio Turnpike, the Indiana Toll Road and others that were built 30 or 40 years ago. Instead, shorter toll roads are springing up on the outskirts of cities, intended primarily to allow suburban dwellers to get to their jobs and other destinations.

Commuter-Type Systems

“These are commuter-type systems,” said Wesley E. Friese, executive director of the Harris County Toll Authority, which is building the Houston-area toll roads. “We are trying to link employment centers with residential areas.”

“These ‘commuter highways’ will become increasingly popular,” predicted Washington, D.C., transportation consultant C. Kenneth Orski. “Commuters are perfectly willing to pay the extra cost to gain a time advantage.”

Orange County officials hope that three new toll roads will help to relieve the gridlock that has developed on Interstate 5 and Interstate 405, which run north and south through the county, and on California 55 and California 91, between Riverside and Orange counties, as well as allowing for further development in the southern part of the county.

Saving Time Supported

“There has been a fairly dramatic increase in public support for the concept of toll roads, if it can be shown that they will really reduce commuting time,” said Mark G. Baldassare, a professor of social ecology at UC Irvine who conducts an annual survey of Orange County public opinion.

Toll road financing is needed to help solve suburban traffic congestion problems because federal and state funds are dwindling.

During the 1960s and ‘70s large amounts of federal tax dollars went into construction of the 42,500-mile Interstate Highway System. Now that task is nearing completion--the 17.3-mile, $2.5-billion Century Freeway in Los Angeles, due to open in 1993, is one of the last links--but federal spending has shifted to repair of existing roads and away from new construction.

Federal Aid Limited

“This leaves only limited amounts of federal aid for construction of the new highway capacity that will be needed to accommodate the estimated 50% increase in vehicular traffic expected by the year 2000,” said a 1985 Congressional Budget Office report.

State spending for new highway construction also has dipped in recent years. In California, highway construction needs have trailed far behind available funding for at least 20 years.

A recent report by the Southern California Assn. of Governments estimated that more than $42 billion in new highway and transit construction would be needed in metropolitan Southern California by the year 2010 just to keep freeways running at close to current speeds. That kind of money is not in sight.

Pay With Tolls or Tax

“There’s just not a lot of money to go around anymore,” said Houston’s Friese. “User fees in some form are the way we are going to have to go--either you pay with tolls or you pay with taxes, but pay you will.”

Faced with this unhappy prospect, a reluctant Congress has agreed to modify its ban on spending federal money for toll roads and has approved “pilot projects” in six states and in Orange County. “Orange County is practically a state anyhow,” Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.) said during debate on the measure.

These projects, including one or more of the three proposed Orange County toll roads, are eligible for up to 35% federal funding, but the money would come from existing appropriations--there is no new money. State agencies (in this state, the California Transportation Commission) must decide if toll roads are more deserving of support than other highway projects that are eligible for federal financing.

Broader Laws Expected

Some observers expect the legislation to be broadened in the future, making more states eligible to compete for federal money that would pay part of the construction costs of toll facilities.

“Whether we like it or not, it’s hard to see how we can avoid moving in that direction,” said a congressional staff member well versed in transportation matters.

The state of Texas has been particularly aggressive in pursuing toll road solutions to suburban traffic-congestion problems. Pay roads are in operation in the Dallas and Houston areas and are being considered for Austin and San Antonio.

In 1983 voters in Harris County (Houston and adjacent suburbs) approved a $900-million general-obligation bond issue to build two toll roads--a 21.6-mile link to the burgeoning northern suburbs and a 28-mile road on Houston’s western edge that will connect several busy freeways and arterial streets.

Heavy Traffic Expected

So far, only 13 miles are in use and traffic is light, but officials expect heavy travel on the 30 miles of roadway that are scheduled to open in July.

One of the new federal pilot projects is to be a 30-mile toll road on the east side of Houston. If built, this would complete an all-toll beltway surrounding the city.

On the 17-mile Dallas North Tollway, which connects downtown with rapidly growing suburbs north of Dallas, average daily traffic reached almost 130,000 in January--a 23% increase over a year ago. Revenues from the $1 toll are sufficient to pay off $208 million in 30-year bonds, and an eight-mile northern extension is planned.

In Colorado, three counties and the city of Aurora have formed the “E470 Authority” to build a 50-mile toll road to the east of Denver. The estimated cost is $1 billion, to be financed by bonds backed primarily by toll revenue. The authority already has sold $722 million worth of bonds and hopes to begin construction later this year.

Popular in Many Areas

New toll roads, or extensions of existing facilities, also have been built or are under construction in Jacksonville, Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Chicago; Richmond, Va., and Oklahoma. These join such war horses as the 350-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike, the 241-mile Ohio Turnpike and a toll road that stretches through 231 miles of Kansas.

Not all of these roads have been successful. The 23-mile Sawgrass Expressway, bypassing Ft. Lauderdale, has plenty of sawgrass but not many cars.

“It’s a loser right now,” said John Berry, chief of the bureau of toll facilities for the Florida Highway Department. “It doesn’t go anywhere . . . but we hope for better results when all the connectors are in.”

Most of the new roads are being built and planned by existing public agencies or by specially created toll authorities, but some are the work of private enterprise.

Private Construction

Sometimes private interests donate land for toll road right-of-way. In other cases landowners and developers are charged special “benefit assessments” to pay for road construction.

The Virginia Legislature recently approved a bill allowing private construction of the 17-mile Dulles Toll Road extension. A private corporation, made up of landowners, developers and others, plans to raise the $125 million needed to build the road and then will operate it for a profit, subject to state regulatory control.

Ralph Stanley, who was administrator of the federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration in the early years of the Reagan Administration and is now vice chairman of the Municipal Development Corp. in New York City, helped to put together the Virginia 1684365676be the answer for Orange County.

Orange County Road

“At least two of the three (proposed routes) are eminently financeable and all three may be,” Stanley said. “After Dulles, I think Orange County is the next step in the direction of privatization.”

But present plans call for the Orange County roads to be built with bond issues that would be paid off by developer fees, toll revenues and federal and state funds.

One of the more imaginative toll proposals is the brainchild of Ned Snead, chairman of the small but profitable Georgetown Railroad Co. in Texas. Snead has proposed a privately financed, $5-billion Texas Toll Speedway, on which vehicles could speed between Amarillo and the Mexican border at 150 m.p.h.

“If the road is a success, and I’m sure it will be, it would make a lot of sense to make some treaties and run it up to Canada and down through Central America to Panama,” Snead said.

Growing Private Role Seen

Although Snead’s idea may seem far-fetched, many experts believe private enterprise will play an increasingly important role in future highway construction.

Advocates of toll roads argue that they can be built faster than tax-supported highways because complete funding usually is available at the beginning of a project and because there are fewer federal and state laws, regulations and procedures to consider.

Friese said the new Houston-area toll roads are $147 million under budget so far but conceded that this is due largely to the weak Texas economy, which has increased the number of construction companies bidding for the toll road work and has reduced the size of their bids.

Because most toll roads are built with bonds that must be paid off, there is closer scrutiny of both construction and operating costs, supporters say.

Incentive to Be Better

They also argue that, since toll roads must attract motorists to be successful, they tend to be better maintained, better patrolled and safer than tax-supported highways.

But critics point out that bond financing adds huge interest payments to the cost of road construction. For instance, the three proposed Orange County routes would cost $1.3 billion to build, in 1987 dollars, but when interest payments of 8% on 30-year bonds are added, the total cost would be well in excess of $3 billion.

Long lines at toll booths often are cited as a major disadvantage, but new automated technology may eliminate that problem.

“Automatic vehicle identification” systems allow cars to be recorded electronically as they pass through the toll plaza--no stopping to hand money to an attendant or even dropping coins into a basket. Motorists are billed by credit card or receive monthly bills, like utility bills, for using the toll road.

San Diego System Praised

A recent Caltrans experiment on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge was judged successful and many expect these automatic systems to be in place on all California toll bridges and tunnels in the next few years.

Besides saving time, automatic toll collection is less expensive because it eliminates the need for many toll takers.

Another criticism is that toll roads, while meeting immediate needs, do not contribute to sound overall transportation planning.

When the Automobile Club of Southern California opposed the state legislation authorizing the Orange County toll roads last year, “our primary concern was that these kinds of facilities do not produce a comprehensive, quality road network,” said David Grayson, the club’s director of engineering and technical services.

Toll Versus Tax Debate

As a matter of political philosophy, there is a continuing debate between those who believe toll roads are a pure form of user fee that should be available to people willing to pay and those who think a transportation system should be financed by taxes paid by everyone and should be available to all motorists, at no charge.

For the time being, however, that debate has been muted by some unpleasant realities: more roads are needed, traditional sources of financing new highway construction are running out and tolls increasingly must be used to fill the gap.

“The federal role in highway financing is waning and we’re going to see many innovative financing mechanisms, including tolls, at the state level,” transportation consultant Kenneth Orski said.

TOLL ROADS IN THE U.S.Dallas North Tollway

One of the earliest toll roads for which historical evidence exists connected Syria and Babylon, well before the birth of Christ, but we don’t know how much the trip cost. But figures are available for the following sample of U.S. toll roads, new and old:

Dallas North Tollway 17 miles $1 Dulles Toll Road (Fairfax County, Va.) 13 miles 85 cents East-West Tollway (Ill.) 96.3 miles $2.70 Hardy Toll Road (Houston)* 21.7 miles $2 Holland East-West Expressway (Orlando, Fla.) 13.8 miles 50 cents Indian Nation Turnpike (Okla.) 105.2 miles $2.50 Indiana Toll Road 156.9 miles $4.65 Kansas Turnpike 231 miles $7 Maine Turnpike 100 miles $2.70 New Jersey Turnpike 118 miles $2.70 Pennsylvania Turnpike 350 miles $8.70 Richmond (Va.) Expressway 6.3 miles 50 cents Sawgrass Expressway (Broward County, Fla.) 23 miles $1.50

* Partly Open

Sources: Congressional Budget Office; U.S. Department of Transportation