Orlando Pike shakes off Greneway Woes

Orlando Pike shakes off Greeneway woes

Its acronym (OOCEA) sounds like it must be in Hawaii (“Oukea”.) It stands for the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority. Say Orange County and most Americans think of southern California and billion dollar fiscal fiascos. Who would want that monicker? Anyway OOCEA is outgrowing the boundaries of Orange County, Florida, a fat el-shaped jurisdiction with barely half of the area’s 1.5 million population. OOCEA is fast becoming the dominant highway service provider over the whole Orlando metro area. So we’re just calling it the Orlando Pike.

It is one of the more enterprising and interesting of the turnpikes. Like most of the Florida area turnpikes it was established by state law and until a couple of years ago it relied on the state Office of Toll Operations to manage the tolls, and on the state transport department and the city to do its roadway maintenance. Its board, appointed by the state governor, gave local bigwigs a say in its policies and it acted as a fundraising and financial entity. But around 1993, according to Jorge Figueredo the OOCEA’s spokesman and operations manager, the board of directors decided to break loose from reliance on others for key services and to become more active across the board in management.

“It flowed logically from our decision to go with electronic tolling,” Figueredo says. While the state was dithering over e-toll systems (Florida DOT has been on and off for years on its “Sunpike” e-tag,) the Orlando Pike got decisive. It became the first turnpike in the U.S. to choose the Mark IV system from Mississauga Ontario. That system has subsequently been adopted by the mid-Atlantic states and could soon become the largest system in the country (see “E-tolling rolls out rapidly in New York,” TR newsletter May 1996, #3, p3,) but at the time the choice in Orlando was bold because it was new. Having decided to go it alone on e-tolling, logic pointed to the authority taking over all tolling from the state so it could manage the integration of electronics, coins and manual payment.

The pike contracted tolling to a private company Florida Toll Services. Staff was cut almost 30 percent and $1 million a year is being saved by replacing FDOT services with the private contractor, according to the latest annual report of the pike. Over a fifth of the saving is attributed to an employee suggestion scheme. The pike claims the takeover of roadway and roadside maintenance from the state has produced major benefits also. Better management of banks has enabled repair and maintenance costs to be cut from $750,000 to $300,000. The overall maintanence budget is down almost a million or 18 percent.

The Orlando metro area must be the most heavily tolled urban system in the U.S. There’s only one untolled expressway — the I-4 that slashes through the city northeast-southwest. The mainline of Florida’s Turnpike, the state toll facility crosses diagonally northwest-southeast. OOCEA’s grid has developed with two east west roads, the first built being 23 miles (37km) of Bee Line Expressway (SR-528) that starts at I-I-4, 8 miles (12km) southwest of the central business district, goes past the front gate of the airport and heads directly to the Atlantic coast. The eastern end is operated by FDOT. The second (SR-408) 22 ml (36km) east-west expressway is named ...wait... the East-West Expressway. It is 5 to 7 miles (8-12km) north of the Bee Line and is centered on the central business district. This road at least has been a real boomer. At its central toll plaza it clocks around 65,000 vehicles a day and just west near I-4 80,000. Sections have already been widened to 6 lanes and more widening is justified together with major rebuilds of interchanges. The Bee Line gets up to 35,000 and has settled there, with traffic growth moving south.

The Pike’s third expresssway known as the Central Florida Greeneway (SR 417) is being built in the form of an area Beltway about 30 ml (50km) north-south and 20 mls (32km) east-west. The eastern (north-south) part links together the two east-west toll roads in its southern section and to the north extends into Seminole County where it becomes known as the Seminole Expressway. OOCEA runs the tolling there too. That runs traffic volumes around 20,000 a day. In the late 1980s a southern segment was built around the backside of the airport close to the Osceola county line. This section which competes with the old Bee Line and with various toll-free arterials has done poorly with daily traffic volumes still below the 10,000 mark.

Remember how the poor old Dulles Greenway in Virginia got ridiculed for getting “only 12,000” vehicles a day when it opened (it’s now 20,000)! The last decade’s expansion projects increased the Orlando pike’s outgoings enormously (principally debt service costs) while making smaller contributions to revenues. Only aggressive hikes in tolls on the congested segments help the enterprise together financially. The southern segment out toward Disney was at first a real bleeder for the pike. But in 1994 it came good with vehicle numbers more than doubling and revenues increasing 160 percent. 1995 saw further healthy increases. A 6 mile (10km) link for the GreeneWay, across the Osceola county line into I-4 south of Disney is currently being built by the state and may help it pick up more traffic with the Tampa area.

OOCEA is now committed to be the lead agency for a massive new extension of its system — the Western Beltway. This goes northward from I-4 near the Polk/Osceola county lines west of Disney servicing a developing area to its north and crossing Florida’s Turnpike at Winter Garden just a few miles from the end of the East-West Exprwy and winds its way further north to US-441 at Apopka. There it stops, as of now. A northwest segment to hook around clockwise and complete the beltway where the Seminole Exprwy (also SR-417) is being built into I-4 has been abandoned. There are too many wetlands and endangered species obstacles.

The Western Beltway as agreed is a difficult 35 mile (56km) project that will cost at least $400m and probably won’t make money for many years. The ‘pike talks of “partnering” with others on this road to reduce the debt burdens of the project. It is now in course of land acquisition and design.

OOCEA has found that its patrons are highly sensitive to toll rates, and the initially disastrous southern segment only came good after toll rates were halved in 1993. When rates have been raised on heavily trafficked sections patronage has declined but revenues have risen strongly.

Electronic tolling initiated in 1994 has been a clear success. The pike says as of June it has 67,000 transponders out with its patrons and around the clock 24 percent of toll transactions are conducted with e-tags. In the rush hours the proportion is 32%.

The pike’s latest annual report shows toll revenues for 1995 of $73.5m up 13.4% on 1994. Operating expenses rose only slightly to $38.4m (from $37.2m) so operating income went up 27% to $35m. But interest was $67m so the authority continues to report overall quite a substantial loss.

The pike has an impressive year 2015 Master Plan and an anually revised 5 year work plan, as well as informative newsletters and annual reports. It is one of the few state toll agencies that is actively investigating time-variable pricing on its system (“value pricing” is the term it is using) and by one estimate this will be worth over $100m to the authority in improved efficiency and profits. It is beginning to gain some public acceptance of the idea of pitching tolls proportional to motorist benefits with higher rates in rush hours and discounts off-peak, though no decision has been made on implementing this obvious improvement on a fixed toll rate.

What OOCEA really needs however is for ‘free’ roads in the region to be made to pay their way via tolls, especially I-4. Such a move might allow the Western Beltway and other loss-making sections of the existing OOCEA system to work without subsidies. Area residents could be compensated with a lower gasoline tax, which they deserve for all the tolls they already pay. (Contacts OOCEA tel 407 425 8606, Post Buckley planning consultants to OOCEA 407 647 7275)