OHIO:Third Laning is Beautiful

The trip over I-70 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-70/I-76) and then over the Ohio Turnpike and the Indiana Toll Road (I-80/90) is a heavy trucking route all the way. Truck volumes range between 5k and 15k/day which means there are sections of road where the righthand lane is often almost continuously trucks, most 18-wheelers, though west of the PA line there are quite a number of 30-wheelers – doubles and triples. And when one of those big-rigs pulls out to pass another in the left of two, it can take forever. For a while there the overtaking truck seems to be just blocking the way, so slowly does it draw past its fellows in the right lane.

That’s where a third lane is just beautiful for a car driver. In the new 3-lane sections the big-rigs are kept legally to the two right lanes, and the new all-asphalt inside lane is reserved for cars.

The Ohio Turnpike is more than half way through a $700m third-laning of 258km (161mi) of the turnpike between MP-218 (mile-post) in Youngstown and MP-59 in Toledo. Youngstown is where two major trucking routes to Chicago and the west converge: (1) I-76 via the Pennysvlvania Turnpike linking southern NJ/Philadelphia and Baltimore via I-70, and (2) I-80 the truck route across the north of PA heading to the ports of Elizabeth in nNJ and New York City at the George Washington bridge.

At Youngstown’s MP-218 IC, I-80 feeds 20k veh/day adding to the 21k veh/day that have come through the Eastgate toll plaza at the PA line. East of MP-218 in Youngstown the Ohio Turnpike is in essence a Pennsylvania Turnpike feeder road and logically remains 2x2-lanes so long as the PA pike sticks to that original configuration.

Going westward through the hilliest terrain of the OH pike from MP-187 to MP-142 the OH pike has taken on, as well as the interstate trucking route, something of the character of an all-purpose intra-urban distributor along the southern fringe of the Cleveland metro area. Here the largest bridge of the pike, over the Cuyahoga River, will be rebuilt to 2x3-lanes completing the 3-laning in about 2004.

At the far western end of the 3-laning, Toledo is virtually a southern part of the Detroit metro area. Three ICs in the Toledo area at MPs 59, 64 and 71 do 38k veh/day, vs 18k veh/day at the IN line. Some of the trips on the turnpike in the Toledo area are local but others relate to longer distance I-75/I-80/90 movements, this being the intersection of a Toronto-Detroit-US South axis with the major east-west axis of the Ohio turnpike itself (I-80/90). Turnpike officials say it has benefited from the growth of NAFTA trade Canada-US-Mexico.

Most of the turnpike pavement dates to 1954-55 construction and consists of 255mm (10") concrete which was subsequently overlaid with 127mm (5") asphalt. Rob Fleischman, assist chief engineer says there is no need in the foreseeable future for complete bottom-up reconstruction. The turnpike regularly rebuilds from the bottom up badly broken sections between expansion joints. And about every 10 years it mills off the top 88mm (3.5") asphalt and lays a new wearing surface of the same thickness.

The original roadway cross-section was standardized around a 17m (56') median. In the third-laning this is being paved over. New central drainage goes in, then 152mm (6") of granular base and 380mm (15") of asphalt (70-20) and central Jersey barrier 1.27m (50") high. The new pavement is striped for a single lane 3.65m (12') of car traffic each direction, leaving about 4.35m (14’3") of breakdown shoulder. But the full depth asphalt is intended to be temporarily striped for a pair of full width all-vehicles travel lanes when repaving or other work needs to be done on the original two travel lanes. (It’s now virtually 2x4-lanes!)

The turnpike’s consulants did a life cycle analysis showing regular asphalt was superior to concrete. All new bridging is being built to take full Michigan-weight trucks, the heaviest in the continent, of 70t (155k pd) gross vehicle mass, and the pavement is designed for axle loadings of 9.7t (21.5k pd). But used only for cars they expect to get 20 to 25 years from the asphalt vs 10 years on the trucked lanes. All rebar in bridging is galvanized or epoxy coated and decks use type K concrete which the turnpike says has been standard since 1984. It cracks less and lasts longer.

The turnpike when first opened had 17 interchanges and now has 32. A 33rd is designed but is meeting opposition.

Service Plazas

The Ohio Turnpike has eight pairs of service plazas and all are being totally rebuilt by the Commission – at a cost of about $12m each including gas stations which the Commission owns and leases out. The buildings are a standard design, brick with a dome and clarestory windows, 30k sq ft floor space, three times the old buildings. The new plazas of which four are in operation have a large increase in truck parking and provision for local people to patronize them in parking connected only to local streets. Concessionaires pay a bid percentage of sales. After eight of the new design are built and in operation the Commission will take a break and assess whether any changes are needed in the design for the last eight.

Toll technology

The Turnpike in January switched on a new toll system supplied by Intrans/TDC. Weigh-in-motion equipment used for vehicle classification was refurbished and repositioned to accommodate today’s longer trucks, there are new touch screen toll terminals in all the collectors booths, new lane controllers and software, automatic magstripe card ticket dispensers on toll plaza entry lanes, and a new toll management system. It was designed to have electronic tolling (ET) added but there are no firm plans to implement ET.

65% of the OH pike traffic is interstate and neither Indiana nor Pennsylvania on either side have ET either. These three will be the last major toll facilities in the US to issue transponders!

17 toll plazas have been renovated and widened in the present capital plan.

Finances

In 1998, the last year reported, the turnpike pulled $14m non-toll income from concessions and the like and $156m of tolls. Toll operations and service cost $22m, maintenance $18m, administration $17m, policing $10m for total operating expenses of $68m. Depreciation of $31m was charged (based on 40 year life for basic pavement and structures and 8 to 12 years for the top wearing pavement) and interest on bonds was $27m, for a profit of $58m. Annual average daily car trips were 96k and truck trips 23k for an average daily 119k tolls, which are exclusively calculated on a trip basis with use of tickets. Cars pay 2.3c/km (3.6c/mi) and trucks an average 7.4c/km (11.9c/mi). Car trips average 82km (51mi) so the average car toll paid is $1.84, while the average truck trip is 145km (91mi) and the toll $10.76. Cars do 70% of the travel which was 4.1b veh-km (2.6 veh-mi) and the revenue is 59% from trucks vs 41% from cars.

Companies with toll charge accounts get a 15% discount on their toll bills for the amount by which their tolls exceed $1,000/month. Toll charge accounts are operated with a magstripe card handed to the toll collector on exit.

5c/gal of state tax collected at gas stations on the turnpike is kept by the turnpike commission. The former exec-dir Alan Plain who retired last year supported trucker efforts to have fuel taxes paid on the turnpike rebated. Under the new director Gino Zomparelli the Turnpike’s position is that fuel taxes are a matter between truckers and the state. The Owner-Operators and Independent Drivers Association has a court case against the state of Ohio for rebating user charges on the grounds that the turnpike relies on tolls for its revenue and receives no fuel tax money.

The strong financial results and lack of political interference in the turnpike has allowed it to gain AA (S&P) AA (Fitch) and A1 (Moody) bond ratings, putting it in the top two or three in the country. (Contact Karen Lenehan 440 234 2081 www.ohioturnpike.org)