Toll Roads

Seen in the Dothan Eagle:

With the Florida panhandle county of Washington deciding Monday to pass on a proposed toll road, organizers say they will continue with the project and are now focusing on their eastern neighbor, Jackson County. [...]

Washington County held two public meetings about the proposed road, and commissioners faced overflow crowds full of residents concerned about eminent domain, the process through which a government entity can take ownership of private land. Other residents were concerned the limited access road would allow traffic to zip through the county without stopping to patronize local merchants.

The commission voted 3-2 against entering into an agreement with the toll road organizers to bring the road through the county.

The map at left should help illustrate why this is a bit of an inconvenience to connector proponents.

As I understand it (and I should disclaim that I live in Connecticut, am interested because of family ties and roadgeekiness, but might not be getting the full story up here in Yankee-land), the thinking has been that a Dothan/I-10 connector would run a bit to the west of Dothan.   The shortest route from such a point to the beach would run through Washington County.

Failure for connector proponents to secure right of way in the county would mean that the ultimate alignment will be a bit longer than would otherwise be necessary.

Personally, I find the concerns about business drying up in the county a little short-sighted. 

True, today Washington County gets a bit of a tourist traffic flow, from folks taking the “back way” through Enterprise and Bonifay to the beach, and it’s likely that some of those smaller businesses will suffer if traffic is moving through on a tollway.

However, if a new controlled-access highway is going to be built — be it a freeway or a tollway — it stands to reason that much of the traffic now sneaking through Washington County will shift to the new road.

If the new road passes through the county, there’s some opportunity to develop new businesses and services to take advantage of the increased traffic.   But if the road goes elsewhere…so do the development opportunities.

There has been a bit of news over the past several months leaking out of the Wiregrass suggesting that work might finally be moving ahead to get Dothan’s I-10 connector built.

However, judging by this article from the Birmingham News (which I apologize for not mentioning earlier), a few folks have grander plans:

Developers and Wiregrass economic development groups want to build the state’s first toll road that would connect central Alabama to the Florida Panhandle.

Transportation officials and Gov. Bob Riley have had several meetings with the developers proposing a public-private road that could ultimately run from Montgomery to Panama City. [...]

There are no estimates of the cost to build the road, but transportation officials estimate it would be in the billions of dollars.

If the toll road is built, it would replace a connector road proposed by ALDOT from Midland City to I-10.

Having lived in southeast Alabama for a few years, and with my wife’s family tied to the area, I am very familiar with US 231 southeast from Montgomery.  There was a time that I could quite literally drive it in my sleep.

While Dothan probably does need better access to I-10 to bolster its local economy and to aid local traffic flow, I do wonder if upgrading US 231 is overkill.  True, it’s not an expressway and traffic can get bogged down in the traffic lights at Troy and Ozark, but it’s a fine road well-suited to its traffic flow.

But getting approval for tolls to accelerate construction of Dothan’s I-10 connector…that would be something for folks in the Wiregrass to get excited about.

This week brings us to an interesting interchange in Tianjin, China:

This is the interchange of the Jingtang Expressway (京津塘高速公路), the Jinji Expressway (津蓟高速公路), and Tianjin’s Outer Ring Road (Waihuanxian)

The Jingtang Expressway (the upper northwest-southeast highway above) is a 4-lane tollway connecting Beijing with Tianjin.  It was built in 1993, and is reported to be seriously plagued by high traffic loads arising from the growth of long-haul trucking and personal auto ownership in the past 15 years.

The Jinji Expressway (running southwest-northeast in the map above) connects the urban center of Tianjin with Ji County of Tianjin province.

And, of course, the Waihuanxian (the more impressive-looking northwest-southeast highway in the map above) is the outer ring road.  Although it looks like a freeway in the above clip, in reality it is just a major road, not-fully controlled access.

I know that folks in Western Massachusetts just love the idea that they may have to start paying tolls on the MassPike again, thanks to some bad investments.

Seen in the Boston Herald:

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority yesterday began mulling new tolls on portions of Interstate 93, hiking tolls on the western Pike and reinstating charges at exits 1 through 6 to help rescue the agency’s ailing finances and to eliminate inequities.[...]

Turnpike Executive Director Alan LeBovidge said yesterday that finances took another negative turn after State Street Bank pulled out of a deal to help rescue the Pike from a pair of souring derivative transactions.

The Pike is currently losing $336,000 a month because of high interest charges, and faces losses of more than $850,000 a month in July unless it can reach an agreement to refinance its debt. State Street had been in talks with the Turnpike to re-issue $127 million in debt, but the bank decided Friday to pull its line of credit, officials said.

Seen at the Boston Globe:

Undersecretary of Transportation Jeffrey Mullan said during a budget hearing in Revere that a toll plan was something the administration was considering as a way to close a $19 billion transportation funding shortfall. I-93 is one of the state’s main north-south arteries, running through Boston and to the New Hampshire border, and travelers currently pay no tolls for using it.

Other administration aides have denied tolls are being considered, and at mid-afternoon, Doug Rubin, Gov. Deval Patrick’s chief of staff, said the statement “was not consistent with the administration’s position.”

Rubin added: “Gov. Patrick firmly believes that we must look for reforms and efficiencies throughout our transportation system before we ask toll payers to pay more. He has been clear that adding tolls throughout I-93 is not an option the administration is prepared to consider at this point. He has directed the secretary of transportation to continue to review the system and find ways to achieve savings and efficiencies first before the administration seriously considers any revenue enhancement options.”

It’s nice to see that even in Taxachusetts, it’s known that seeking efficiency within the government is preferable to tax hikes. However, perhaps the Patrick administration would have done better to mention any thoughts of tolling I-93 (or any other interstate in the state) in the context of combating pollution, CO₂ emissions, and congestion…before highlighting the revenue-generation aspects.

We go to Brazil this week:

This is a section of SP-160, the Rodovia dos Imigrantes (”Immigrants Highway”), a toll expressway connecting São Paulo with the Atlantic coastal cities of São Vicente and Praia Grande, descending 800 meters in elevation down the Serra do Mar in the process.

Due to the volume of beach-bound traffic, the route can be converted into a one-way expressway (with traffic seeking to go the other way relegated to the older Rodovia Anchieta).

The particular stretch shown above is one of the crossover points of the two carriageways, as they snake around the escarpment, making use of 44 viaducts, 7 bridges, and 11 tunnels for the 59km route.

This week’s quest for highway features takes us to Jakarta, Indonesia:

Annoyingly, precious little information is easily accessible online about the highway system in and around Jakarta, other than observations that the gridlock and smog are amazing.   However, while poking around, I found this interesting toll plaza on the expressway leading to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, on the outskirts of Jakarta.

The toll is apparently 6000 rupiahs…or about USD 0.65 (as of this writing anyway).

For this week’s entry, we’ll head south of the border:

This is the southern end of the tolled section of the Autopista México-Querétaro in the Cuautitlán Izcalli municipality north of Mexico City.  Signed as Federal Route 57D, this is reported to be the first Autopista to have been built in Mexico, opening late in 1958.

OK, it’s time that I got off my duff and re-launched my once-weekly practice of highlighting an interesting roadgeek feature each Sunday evening.

So, to kick-off the new series of features….

This is the Kawasaki Ukishima Junction outside Tokyo Japan, an interchange of the Bayshore Route (首都高速道路湾岸線, “Wangan-sen”, National Route 357) and the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (東京湾アクアライン, National Route 409).

The Wangan-sen is a toll expressway running over and between a series of islands on the east side of Tokyo Bay from Yokohama to Ichikawa, while the Aqua-Line provides a bridge-tunnel crossing of Tokyo Bay between Kawasaki and Kisarazu.

So, we have an interchange on an island, with two tunnel portals adjoining the interchange.  Cool!

Wikipedia Japan has a short entry on the interchange (Japanese or Google-translated to English), which provides a little more information, along with links to connecting highways.

Seen at TollRoadsNews:

USDOT have told Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) and DOT that their application to toll I-80 does not meet the requirements for even conditional approval. And they have posed four pages of questions they say must be answered by state authorities if they wish to continue with the application. The questions are sharply worded, suggesting the feds consider the state application to be a shoddy piece of work.

TollRoadsNews has a nice summary of what those questions are…and the entire tone of the response reminds me of some insurance rate filings I’ve worked through with uncooperative state regulators.

My favorite passage of the response (again quoting TRN):

A legal requirement to demonstrate how present funding is inadequate to maintain I-80 provokes sharp questions by the feds about the low priority Pennsylvania has been giving to interstate maintenance:

- asking why US interstate maintenance funds have been transferred for other purposes

While I’m not opposed to tolling highways to fund their construction and maintenance (assuming that that is what the tolls are going for), I do appreciate it when someone points out hypocrisy by a state agency.