Trucking association denounces toll roads

Trucking association denounces toll roads    The American Trucking Associations said it strongly opposes privatizing or leasing existing toll facilities to fund highway infrastructure projects.
   The nation’s largest trucking industry group, during its annual conference in Dallas, called on federal, state and local governments to abandon the funding technique for roads, bridges or tunnels because it comes “at great expense to the trucking industry and taxpayers and with potential negative impacts on highway safety, security and the motoring public.”
   The ATA said it supports financing highway improvements through the use of highway user fees such as the fuel tax. It did not address the use of toll roads to finance the construction of new roads.
   Indiana recently completed a $3.5 billion concession agreement with a foreign consortium to operate an interstate highway as a toll road for 75 years, and several other states have large public-private ventures underway or under consideration.
   “Policymakers have to ask if it’s worth the economic risk and loss of control in determining the future use, renovation and expansion of our nation’s vital strategic assets, of which highway infrastructure may be of greatest importance,” said ATA President Bill Graves in a statement. “ATA is prepared to lead a national coalition of highway users in opposition to these financing schemes that offer a short-term windfall but a long-term recipe for disaster.”
   A proliferation of toll roads would increase operating expenses for trucking companies, and Graves said so much freight is being moved for critical economic needs that motor carriers could not avoid paying tolls by taking alternate routes.
   ATA’s board of directors issued a 10-point policy on privatization for cases in which governments actually decide to turn over infrastructure to a private entity. Recommendations include:
   * Restricting the use of revenues generated by the sale of the lease to untolled highway projects.
   * Setting toll rates that only cover costs related to the toll facility plus a reasonable return on investment.
   * Providing adequate facilities for the trucking industry, such as rest stops.
   * Rebating state fuel taxes paid by facility users.
   * Applying constraints on private operators’ ability to impose fees and restrictions on vehicles.
   * Establishing a “sinking fund” for continued maintenance and operation.
   * Preventing clauses that restrict improvements to competing roads.
   * Requiring open road, or at-speed, tolling and making the technology compatible with that used on other Interstate toll roads.
   * Creating performance specifications that ensure operations and maintenance that guarantee safety and provide for acceptable traffic flows.
   Any privatization agreement also should create an oversight group with representation from major stakeholders, including the trucking industry, the ATA said.