Paying for Roads One Way or Another

Yes, I know everyone is talking about MoCo’s budget crisis, and don’t worry – we will too. But this Post article on a report by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) calling for a comprehensive toll network caught my eye.

According to the article:

The [COG] study, which will be presented to the council of governments' Transportation Planning Board, includes three scenarios. The first would add a series of new toll lanes to every freeway in the region, with tolls applying only to drivers on those lanes, a proposal that is seen as unworkable. The new roads and overpasses would be so costly and eat up so much land that it is essentially a non-starter.

"We can't build a duplicate highway network; it ain't gonna happen," [COG transportation director Ronald] Kirby said.

The report lays out two other scenarios that would add tolls to existing highways:

One would add tolls to all District river crossings and existing freeway lanes in the city, where there is no room for new or expanded lanes. The plan would, in effect, connect the 1960s-era highway network that was discontinued in favor of Metrorail. For example, the stretch of New York Avenue from the District line to the Third Street tunnel, which connects U.S. 50 and Interstate 395, would be tolled. Similarly, the stretch of Independence and Maine avenues that joins the Arlington Memorial Bridge and Southeast/Southwest Freeway would be tolled.

The most comprehensive scenario, which has captured the imagination of planners and government leaders, would toll every regional highway, plus all the regional parkways, including the Baltimore-Washington, George Washington, Rock Creek and Potomac, Clara Barton and Suitland parkways.

According to the report, the most comprehensive tolling network would raise $2.75 billion a year, increase transit use by 6 percent, boost carpool rates by 4 percent and result in a relatively small -- 1.2 percent -- increase in vehicle miles traveled, which is how traffic planners measure the amount of driving.

Why are we talking about tolls? Because there just aren't very many alternatives to pay for massively expensive but necessary transportation projects. Neither Maryland nor Virginia have done very well at this. In last year’s special session, the Maryland legislature voted to allow the gas tax to increase along with construction costs, thereby generating an extra $400 million annually for transportation. But $250 million will go to maintenance, leaving just $150 million – roughly equal to the cost of one average interchange project – for new projects statewide each year. In Virginia, a plan to allow an unelected board to levy taxes for transportation unraveled when the state’s Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. Politicians in neither state have shown much willingness to further increase gas taxes, so COG is proposing tolls as an alternative.

I have never actually met a person who loves tolls. I mean, not just one who tolerates tolls, but one who has formed a pro-toll fan club, collects toll-related memorabilia, has opened a toll museum and worships toll collectors like rock stars. That said, EZ-Pass has made paying tolls less painful than it used to be.

But think about it like this: one way or another, we will pay for our road network. We can pay for it through a gas tax. We can pay for it through tolls. We can pay for it by privatizing roads (as Indiana has done) and then watching the private operators jack up the tolls over time. Or we can pay for it by sitting in congestion, burning needless gas as our cars idle and further pollute the atmosphere. The first two options present costs that are obvious and up-front whereas the last two have costs that are hidden or deferred. Nevertheless, I find the first two options preferable to the last two because at least they do not increase greenhouse gas emissions or enrich plutocratic investors.