GA Bill for private pikes

GA

Bill for private pikes

Georgia has passed a law allowing investors to build toll roads and bridges in the state if they reach agreements with local authorities. The bill had bipartisan backing, and the support of the state DOT. It allows the state’s power of eminent domain to be invoked in support of land acquisition for such investor road projects.

Jim Allen head of United Toll Systems of Mongomery AL was largely responsible for passage of the bill. His proposal for a toll bridge over the Chattahoochee River at Johnson Ferry Road in the northern part of the Atlanta area gained considerable press and political support. He took Georgia people to see his three Alabama projects, and they came back enthusiastic converts to the toll cause.

Steve Thompson (Dem) a state senator from the area called the traffic situation at the existing 2-lane bridge “desperate” and said he and other area politicians supported passage of the new law because it was the only way they could see a new bridge being funded.

UTS has to negotiate an agreement with Cobb and Fulton counties on either side of the river. The company hopes to have the bridge built and open before the fall of 1999. It has said it can open the bridge within 9 months of finalizing all permits.

Bridges built in AL by UTS have been innovative. One is quite deliberately designed for closure during 10-year floods, a move which saved two-thirds the cost of meeting federal requirements that bridges be out of the 100-year flood plain. Allen also does major prefabrication, use of standardized parts, and makes extensive use of barges to get large beams and yard-built sections to the bridge site. He has two toll bridges in Montgomery open and a third in Tuscaloosa under way.

Allen’s group is talking to officials in other Georgia counties, and considering projects in other southern states.

The UTS formula so far is to finance and build a bridge entirely with money the company has raised, so as to retain the right to build and operate with the minimum of complex legal agreements and controls. Government support is used for building connecting roads and associated works. Allen likes bridges because the rivers, being a barrier to traffic, give him a rather good guarantee his toll traffic won’t be bypassed by a free facility.

Georgia has the US lowest state gasoline tax at 7.5c/gal and most Georgians want to keep it that way. It means however they have relatively little state money for road projects. The state’s first big turnpike GA-400 built by the state earlier this decade is very popular and financially successful. (Kim Finn, UTS 334 567 2001)