Orlando ‘aggressive’ policies

Trolley fantasies having sunk under the weight of their own absurdity into then swamps of central Florida, it is all green lights for local tollsters to come up with innovative proposals to help the burgeoning area avert congestion. That probably means some kind of toll express facility on I-4, the main northeast-southwest running arterial that goes between the downtown and Disney, completion of the Beltway system especially the Western Exwy (FL-429), improved north-south movement linking the airport and downtown, and widening/highway-speed ET on the established mainly east-west pikes (FL-408, FL-528, FL-417).

The 1999 annual report of the Orlando Orange Co Exwy Auth (OOCEA) notes that its ET system known as E-PASS has enabled it to handle near double-digit annual increases in traffic so far without toll plaza enlargement, and that the next step involves more costly plaza rebuilds to provide for open road ET. Recent discounts on ET usage have resulted in minimal revenue loss (2%), the authority says, but promoted the higher penetration of tags it is seeking. Over 200k E-PASS tags are now on issue and electronic transactions in rush hours are now over 50% at several plazas.

The report also says OOCEA is “on the verge of implementing some innovative pricing strategies” in order to manage traffic better and make improved use of available capacity.