TOLLING

State Gas Tax Revenues Take Another Hit

Time To Bite The P3 Bullet In The Olympian, Adam Wilson reports Washington state officials are bracing for a widening gap of $95 million between expected and actual gas tax revenues through June 2009, as sharply higher gas prices constrict the volume of fuel purchased at the pump. The renewed transportation revenue concerns are indicative of a larger, long-term challenge that’s also felt due to the nearly bankrupt federal gas tax trust fund and the shifting landscape in infrastructure. …construction costs increased by 60 percent in five years, as demand in India and China drove up prices for steel and concrete, and the cost of diesel fuel for construction equipment soared. In Washington, as elsewhere, some planned road and bridge Read More ›

Steady Progress On Congestion Pricing, Tolling

Suppose electricity was free, even at hours of peak usage. Think your power supply would be reliable, then? Exactly. Now apply the same common-sense approach to highway capacity. Or consider the Environmental Defense Fund’s Transportation Director Michael Replogle, who writes in the Washington Post: Congestion pricing may be controversial to some people, but it’s inevitable. Using tolls simply to build more roads is a costly way to end up with even more traffic and pollution….Done right, congestion pricing can boost the efficiency of our existing roads, raise revenue to invest in transit, and reduce pollution that causes asthma, cancer, heart disease, impaired lung development and global warming….In the long run, congestion pricing is the only effective and economically and politically Read More ›

Washington Legislature Advances Tolling For Puget Sound

In its election year “short session” concluded last week, the Washington state legislature took several important, albeit partial steps to advance tolling, commuter rail, passenger-only ferries and innovative transportation funding partnerships with non-government entities. Let’s review some key ’08 transportation bills that made it through both legislative chambers, and now await the signature of Gov. Christine Gregoire. ESHB 3096 (bill as passed – bill report – legislative history) has to do with the State Route 520 floating bridge connecting Seattle across Lake Washington to fast-growing Eastside business and residential centers such as Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond. The bill report reminds us that the bridge carries 115,000 vehicles and about 150,000 people per day; it is 1.5 miles long and 44 Read More ›

Tolling, Finance Innovation Vital For Infrastructure Growth

Implemented regionally, tolling and congestion pricing will be the key that unlocks the door to more efficient use of major highways in Puget Sound. Incentives for more telecommuting, carpooling, vanpooling and off-peak travel will grow substantially, as tolls and especially time-variable congestion pricing are instituted over the next few years. Tolling coupled with investment by public employee and labor union pension funds will also help close funding gaps on major road, bridge and transit projects needed to accomodate economic growth and environmental protection. Despite some political resistance, this paradigm will transform transportation infrastructure development across North America in coming years and decades. Let’s once again take a partial and recent survey of the landscape, starting with Puget Sound. Just last Read More ›

Freight Railroads Undergoing Dramatic Expansion

According to the Association of American Railroads, freight railroads carry more than 40 percent of the nation’s freight measured in ton miles, and had aggregate revenues of $54 billion in 2006. The Association’s January 2008 report “Overview Of U.S. Freight Railroads” notes that “a typical train takes the freight equivalent of several hundred trucks of our highways.” And freight railroads are experiencing unprecedented expansion. “For the first time in nearly a century railroads are making large investments in their networks,” wrote Daniel Machalaba in the Wall Street JournalĀ (“New Era Dawns For Rail Building,” February 13, 2008). He reports that since 2000, freight railroads have spent $10 billion to expand track, build freight yards and buy rolling stock and they have Read More ›

Metro Portland, The I-5 Bridge Tolls For Thee

Have you ever seen a whole lot more of the mighty Columbia River and Portland’s skyline than you really wanted to, because you were crawling on Interstate 5? C’mon, raise your hands. Well, good news. The government is here to help. And so are you and I. Probably. The Oregonian’s Dylan Rivera reports today that at a meeting yesterday of the 39-member Columbia River Crossing Task Force, tolls emerged as a likely ingredient in the recipe to fund a fix for the badly-congested Interstate Bridge corridor on I-5. The early and perhaps rose-colored estimate is that tolls would range from $1.28 each way during off-peak hours to $2.56 at peak periods. They would be collected electronically, and provide an estimated Read More ›

Congestion Pricing, Tolls Loom For Puget Sound

With the defeat by Puget Sound taxpayers of a multi-billion-dollar roads and transit ballot measure Nov. 6, momentum is growing for tolling and congestion pricing to help ease traffic congestion in the Seattle region, as this news and opinion round-up shows. In a Puget Sound Transportation Action Plan just unveiled, Cascadia Center also accents tolling and congestion pricing, along with centralized regional decision-making on transportation; more private investment in roads and transit; more bus rapid transit and commuter rail; an enhanced network of suburban park-and-ride lots; plus more government fleet purchases of – and fuel infrastructure development for – flexible-fuel plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Puget Sound hesitantly stands on the cusp of allocating more rationally its scarce road capacity. Tolling Read More ›