The appended Russell Sadler commentary is titled "Pay-to-drive roads scam an idea that takes its toll". It begins: "Toll roads, we are told, are a great new 21st century idea guaranteeing a future free of gridlock." and goes on to explain, "We deliberately price some motorists off the highways so those who do pay experience less congestion."
This issue provides an important intersection between the concept of Public roads and Public lands.
What is proposed in this article is an approach frequently put forth for reducing visitation in the national parks back in the days when we were "Loving the Parks to Death". This approach was popular with conservationists and free-market ideologues alike.
Now that park entrance fees have increased as much as 500% since fee-demo was introduced in 1996, the problem of overcrowding is sorting itself out. Though few will admit the possibility of 'cause and effect', what is undeniable is that in 2006 the public is staying away in droves and parks are once again reverting to "pleasuring grounds" for the wealthy. Parks were briefly (from the 50s to the 80s), as Wallace Stegner said, "Absolutely American, absolutely democratic". They are no longer so.
Scott
PS... Here's a quote from Congressional Testimony given by the ARC in 2/96.
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/105cong/parks/98feb26/crandall.htm.
In our testimony before this committee in 1995, we outlined a variety of ideas we hoped would be tested by the agencies. The National Park Service, especially, is an important laboratory for this learning. While the fee demo program has produced substantial new receipts for that agency with minor levels of complaints from the public, most of the revenue has been generated from increases in already-existing entrance fees. The agency can and should also consider:
use of differential pricing between peak and non-peak periods of the year, to encourage shifts of visitations to periods of the year with the capacity to host visitors with minimal social and environmental consequences;
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Pay-to-drive roads scam an idea that takes its toll
Published: Monday, June 26, 2006
Toll roads, we are told, are a great new 21st century idea guaranteeing a future free of gridlock.
A vigorous effort is under way in Virginia and Maryland to create
privately financed toll roads that would allow those who pay to commute
from the suburbs to the nation's capital without a single traffic jam.
The cost? About $30, billed to your credit card. Existing roads would
remain free - and congested.
"We're creating choices that are not otherwise possible," Maryland
Transportation Secretary Robert Flanagan told The Washington Post. "By
using variable tolling, you can use a market mechanism to keep those
lanes relatively congestion free."
Translation? "We deliberately price some motorists off the highways so
those who do pay experience less congestion." It is not coincidental
that this anti-egalitarian "experiment" is being conducted in the
bubble that surrounds Washington, D.C.
Toll roads are not new. They are a reindustrialize idea that failed
during the rapid growth of the Industrial Age when the local, state and
federal governments took over the responsibility for providing a
comprehensive, integrated transportation system. The revival of toll
roads is not going over well in other parts of the country.
The state of Indiana - it calls itself the Crossroads of America - just
agreed to lease the existing, publicly owned Indiana Toll Road to an
Australian-Spanish consortium for the next 75 years for $3.8 billion.
This is a radical departure from past practice, even in a country that
still operates toll bridges and some expensive-to-maintain publicly
owned toll roads in the East and Middle Atlantic states.
Leasing the Indiana Toll Road to foreign owners is the brainchild of
Gov. Mitchell Daniels, not incidentally the Bush administration's first
budget director, where he apparently got this idea. Daniels says he is
"astonished" by the passionate opposition the lease unleashed. Daniels
promises the $3.8 billion in lease loot will go to reduce the backlog
of new highway projects, and that it will create jobs and bring new
industry to invigorate Indiana's sagging economy.
Daniels' critics insist the public got a bad deal. Motorists will still
pay tolls on the toll road and gas taxes to maintain the newly
constructed roads. Driving in Indiana will become more expensive, not
less. Daniels' approval rating has nose-dived from about 50 percent
last winter to 37 percent in recent polls.
Oregon also is flirting with privately financed highway projects,
including a bypass of Newberg and Dundee in Yamhill County paid for by
tolls. A company that builds the toll road might also be paid by
granting development rights along the right-of-way, much like the
Transcontinental Railroad was financed with land grants in the
mid-1800s.
Private financing of a transportation project by granting development
rights has already been done once in Oregon, but it did not involve a
highway. The Bechtel Corp. built an extension of a light rail line to
the Portland Airport in exchange for development rights on 120 acres
along the right-of-way.
But the motive behind the Bechtel scheme was not really gaining private
financing. The motive was avoiding a public vote on the debt necessary
to finance the light rail extension if it was built by the government.
And that is the dirty little secret behind the latest fascination with
toll roads - it avoids public votes on potentially controversial
highway projects.
Most states, including Oregon, have constitutionally set debt limits.
Exceeding the debt limit requires voter approval. In 2001, Oregon's
Republican-controlled Legislature financed the Oregon Transportation
Investment Act - pork barrel highway projects disguised beneath a real
need to repair Oregon's aging bridges and make them earthquake
resistant - by pledging future gasoline tax revenues to pay off the
bonds instead of pledging the "full faith and credit" of the state,
which requires a public vote to exceed the state's debt limit.
Now, the Legislature and state transportation officials find their
future gasoline revenues already are spent. They are forced to consider
scams like toll roads. Another scam with the same motive is charging
highway taxes by the mile, which discriminates against efficient cars.
Why the determined effort to avoid a vote on highway projects?
New highway projects are controversial because it is increasingly clear
that the post-World War II highway system that produced the post-World
War II suburban sprawl is not sustainable as petroleum gets more
expensive. Yet, well-entrenched interests that profit from sprawl are
unlikely to give up their privileged positions gracefully.
That is why they are so anxious to avoid a public debate about trying
to finance a highway system that is no longer affordable. They do not
want a serious discussion of alternatives.
And that is why Oregon is among the states planning to go backward in the future by talking toll roads.
Political commentator Russell Sadler lives in Eugene.
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