UTAH Toll project fizzles with manna from Shusta

UTAH

Toll project fizzles with manna from Shusta

When he announced the “Legacy” highway project as a new north-south route through the Salt Lake valley in July 1996, Utah governor Mike Leavitt suggested it would be a toll road. It would need “private and/or local government partnerships,” the state announcement said.

The first section a 21 km stretch called Legacy West Davis (WD) Hwy extends from the northwest corner of I-215 (at Redwood Rd) northward to join I-15 at its junction with US-89 in Farmington. With 2 intermediate interchanges versus 4 ICs on parallel I-15 it is part of an effort to improve mobility along the narrow plain where the Great Salt Lake comes closest to the Wasatch mountain range in Davis County immediately north of Salt Lake City line.

One of the nation’s largest highway projects is going on now immediately south in Salt Lake Co where I-15 is being completely rebuilt and widened to 12 lanes (auxiliary, 4 unrestricted, HOV each direction) for 24km in a $1.6b project. The thriving central Utah metropolis (1.4m pop) is squeezed by the Wasatch range to the east and the Great Salt Lake and the vast Kennecott copper mining operations in the Oquirrh mountains to the west into a linear north-south development. South of Salt Lake city there will soon be 18 mwy standard lanes (12 on I-15, 6 on I-215.) North of SLC in Davis Co after I-215 has petered out, in the stretch through Bountiful there are currently only 6-lanes and 110k veh/day and growing 3 to 7% pa. By 2006 the forecasters say there will be 170k veh/d and by 2020 250k veh/day toll-free.

A Utah DOT official told us that interest in the Legacy-WD as a toll road has fizzled because of the apparent availability of tax money to build the project as a free road and a discouraging traffic and revenue study. Half the funds for the $300m project are identified and it is hoped the rest will flow quickly from Washington DC given the size of the new highway allocations — manna-from-Shusta. In addition there has been opposition to tolling from vocal groups in Davis Co, who have argued that it is unfair they should have a toll road while other parts of the area are able to drive free.

There have been two toll studies the most serious being a preliminary traffic and revenue study recently completed by Wilbur Smith. No big surprise — it shows that it is tough for a toll road to compete with the freeway, especially after you widen the freway. The two are only 1.0km to 2.5km apart over much of their length. They are competing for the same traffic.

The Wilbur Smith study examined 3 scenarios:

(1) I-15 stays 6-lanes (no widening) but Legacy-WD is built 4-lanes and operated toll-free and as a pike

(2) the new parallel Legacy-WD 4-lanes is built and opened in 02, then immediately afterward I-15 is reduced from 6-lanes to 4-lanes for 4-years of reconstruction to 10-lanes (2x5 with 1 lane each direction HOV)

(3) I-15 reconstruction is deferred to 2006 and opens 2010 as 10-lanes competing with the 4-lane pike

Without construction on I-15 2006 toll traffic is put at 25k veh/d and annual revenue at $4.6m (Cases 1 and 3), while with construction on I-15 (Case 2) and its reduction during the duration to 4-lanes, toll traffic would be 33.4k at a toll of $1 vs 50c without, and revenues jump to $13.6m. By 2020 with (1) no expansion of I-15 WSA forecasts 39k veh/d on the Legacy-WD pike in 2020 and with a $1 toll revenues of $19m/yr. With a widening of I-15, traffic on the pike (at the lower toll of 50c) is only 32k and revenues $6m/yr.

Operations and maintenance of the pike are put at $1.4m to $1.7m/yr.

Only finance a bit over $100m

Dal Hawks the UDOT project manager says they took the WSA operating surplus numbers and did a present value analysis of the revenue streams. He says they would only fund a bit over a third of the $300m capital cost. So UDOT have decided not to pursue the toll option. Hawks says that they were hoping the revenue streams might finance half the cost of the toll road. There was disappointment he said among officials about the result. They had been excited at the prospect of doing a toll facility in the area.

WSA based its analysis on flat rate tolls but said that congestion pricing “or other market-based pricing according to usage patterns” could increase revenues and recommended they be studied in a full traffic and revenue study. But Hawks says at this point there is some opposition and little support for tolls because there is a feeling tax monies can be found, so there won’t be any further analysis.

There are some strange aspects to the WSA forecasts — up to 149.9k veh/day on I-15 when it is 4-lanes! Similarly for 2020 the report forecasts traffic on I-15 at 6-lanes as 214k veh/day. Maybe they have in mind calling in Steve Shladover of UC Berkeley to install his electronic platooning to zap cars through at double the normal vehicles/lane/hr?

Jeffrey Buxbaum who was in charge of the study at WSA agrees his approach was conservative in estimating the turnpike’s potential. He says it has good connections at the northern end but that its southern cityside connection is west of the center of gravity of activity, and so is a less attractive route than I-15 for most motorists, other things being equal. He says the modelling focussed on what was realistic for the Legacy-WD, not much on I-15 numbers. He suspects that if congestion got as high as the I-15 forecasts a lot of trips would simply not be made.

Buxbaum sees the Legacy-WD as having similarities with the Hardy Toll Road in Houston, a radial from the north that parallels the free I-45 about 4 to 5km away. The Hardy ends at Houston’s North Loop I-610 about 7km from the center of the city providing a less direct route than the competitive I-45 which runs right down into the city center. With the toll as well as a poorer cityside connection, the Hardy pike is empty.

In any case the Legacy-WD toll study is now thought to be academic. UDOT is confident that the tax funds will be gotten for widening I-15 to 10-lanes, and with that kind of free capacity the chances of a competitive 4-lane pike hacking it financially are ziltch. The road is expensive because it is all fill and no cut to get it above GS Lake flood level. It is squashed between housing and the lake, a big design challenge.

Mick Crandall at the Wasatch Regional Council says that the next major new highway in the area will probably be a section of the Legacy from I-80 southwest of the airport heading due south, about 6km west of I-215. The plan is to eventually extend this north around the west of the airport to the Legacy-WD, and south through Jordan and around the west shore of Utah Lake along UT-68. It would have a somewhat better chance of working financially as a toll project because it will have less competition from a free freeway. But if there are tax funds available, building it free will always be more popular.

Meanwhile the Legacy-WD is to be built with a combination of state and federal $s. The project has gone through most of the major investment and enviro impact process. Officials of UDOT hope to have a design-build contract in place to start simultaneously in the summer of 99 for road opening mid-02.(Contact Dal Hawks UDOT 801 281 9507; Mick Crandall, Wasatch Reg Council 801 292 4469; Jeffrey Buxbaum WSA 203 865 2191)