EDITORIAL:IBTTA slack on policy

In New Brunswick a new premier is anti-toll. He’s trying to kill the Fredericton-Moncton Toll Road. In Nova Scotia the tolls on the Cobequid Pass are under attack Down in Miami-Dade FL the mayor wanted to make area tolls the sacrificial lamb for a tax for a bunch of trains and trolleys. The mayor was routed at ballot 68/32, thanks to two guys prepared to take on the whole of the local establishment. In Butler county Ohio the state’s first new toll road since the main state turnpike was smothered at birth by the state DOT. Now in Illinois one of the nation’s greatest toll systems is under attack by none other than the state governor (see right). Opportunistic anti-tolls sentiment will be a serious threat to the future of tolling all over unless opinionmakers and electorates hear the pro-toll message more clearly.

IBTTA hasn’t been heard from in any of these policy debates. It’s needed. Sure, these contests will be determined principally by local players, but what is often lacking in these arguments is (1) the broader perspective of what happens elsewhere without tolls (2) the history of tolls and the silly cycles of detolling and retolling (3) how tolling doesn’t have to mean fumbling for cash as you maneuver between toll lane queues and waiting ten minutes to throw quarters – the electronic toll story (4) the positive advantages of tolling in managing traffic and ensuring free flow driving with variable toll rates (5) the basic fairness of tolling as a closely tailored user-pays charge rather than a tax which falls on people who have made no use of the road.

The tollster under attack often isn’t in a strong position to defend tolls itself. Its talk is accompanied by the sounds of it grinding its own ax. The locals participating in the tolls arguments will generally welcome the broader perspective – an outside viewpoint. They aren’t getting it from IBTTA. Now, that’s not necessarily IBTTA’s fault. But it’s the toll industry’s fault for not organizing some continuing pro-tolls campaign, and a vigorous defense of tolls when they are attacked. Maybe IBTTA isn’t the right channel but someone should be contributing strategic support in the war for tolls and saying: Tolls are the best way to pay for major road facilities. They are the principled way. They are fairer than any other way. They will produce the best managed, and most efficient, and safest roads. Toll roads are the best roads for motorists. Far from being just a last resort method of funding a road, tolls are the method of choice. And of course articulating those propositions with data, examples, reasoning and explanations.

Call it propaganda, strategic marketing, education, political warfare, it doesn’t matter. There needs to be a systematic effort to pitch the tolls message better, and to network more with all the players in the toll roads vs tax roads debates. Some specifics: there needs to be more involvement of the toll industry with sympathetic thinktanks such as Cato, AEI, Reason, Cascade, CEI, Thoreau, Heartland, Brookings etc to improve the flow of policy papers in support of tolling and road pricing. Common cause needs to be made more systematically with anti-tax groups and moderate environmentalists, both of whom are natural allies. IBTTA’s excellent history of tolling (done by Norman Wuestefeld of WSA) needs to be updated and reprinted. Toll agencies need to encourage their story to be written with histories and features to generate respect for them as important institutions, and to spread these around. We need a Ready Reaction Tolls Brigade that can be deployed rapidly, “flown in” to troublespots (via email, telephone, fax mainly) to help the locals with data, arguments, comparisons, pamphlets, ad copy, expert contact lists, campaign advice, website materials etc when tolls come under attack from the snake-oil merchants peddling the seductive illusion that the people can have their roads for nothing, if only the tolls are abolished. And we should be out there making the case for tolls when different alternatives are under discussion in project selection and planning. As the EPA said, it’s important to get in early on ‘the process.’ Tolls and road pricing should be an alternate in every major investment study and project design, and there should be toll experts scheduled to put the case. We can’t afford the present laisser-faire, fatalist approach to toll politics. That’s for losers.