GREED & GRINCHERIE:Tolls and Santa Claus

A correspondent recently asked the WASHINGTON POST’s traffic columnist Dr Gridlock why the states didn’t lift tolls for the holidays. He responded: “Forgeddabout it. If you’re going up the eastern seaboard resign yourself to those greedy toll authorities sticking their hands into your pockets. Holidays mean even more revenue.” (12/18/00 pB5) To avoid “grinchy tolltakers” he advised his readers to get to New York and Boston by taking the free interstates (I-81, I-78, I-84 etc) through central Pennsylvania instead of the coastal turnpikes.

Bad advice because at best the mountain routes are hours longer than the direct route on the coastal plain. But it’s especially bad advice in wintertime. The steep highways of the Appalachians are far more prone to snow, ice and fog problems than the toll roads. And the turnpikes are much better equipped with trucks and crews than the Pennsylvania DOT to salt, sand and plow.

And why should toll authorities be expected to lift tolls during the holidays? Do the airlines cease levying fares? Does the Metrorail system give free rides? Do landlords forgo December rent? For that matter does the government cease collecting the gas tax? Why don’t they get badmouthed as greedy, grinches etc for their failure to lock up the cash registers at holiday time?

Fact is toll authorities are like all the other businesses with payrolls to meet, investors wanting a return on their capital, bills to pay etc. They aren’t charities.

Most people accept tolls. Millions of motorists pay them every day. And where people are asked if they’d prefer a tax or a toll the answer in surveys and ballots is usually the toll. But tolls do arouse great passions among a vocal minority, like Dr Gridlock.

The reasons are notions that (1) gasoline taxes, license fees etc should be sufficient to pay for all the roads (2) toll collection is expensive and inefficient (3) waiting times at toll plazas are an outrage. Actually gas taxes are an increasingly uncertain source of revenue for building and operating roads. Higher prices have produced considerable taxpayer revolts In Europe and several US states and some rollbacks. No one is proposing increases. Enhanced fuel economy and encouragement to alternative-fuel vehicles seem likely to undermine gasoline as a source of revenue for roads. Not to mention the common practice of using large slabs of the gas tax for supporting rail transit, rather than roads. In any case the gas (and diesel) taxes yield what they yield which is about 70 percent of total highway revenues. License fees garner a bit over 20 percent and tolls a bit under 10 percent. You’d have to raise fuel taxes by about an eighth or license fees by a half to eliminate tolls. Tolls are very unevenly distributed around the country, and within states, so politically that’s not going to happen.

But why try? Tolls are a fair way to pay for the road. If you use it, you pay. If you don’t use it, you don’t pay. It’s the way we finance most goods and services – food, electricity, telephones, air travel, cars themselves. The direct linkage between the road service provider and the customer via the toll booth has some advantages for motorists over funneling all that money through the gas pump, via gasoline traders, tax collectors, state assemblies and different levels of government.

Opposition to tolls as expensive and time-wasting was understandable in the past when all tolls were had to be paid by cash to a toll collector and where toll plazas regularly developed long lines. But electronic tolling has hugely reduced the hassle and cost of toll collection and is allowing motorists to avoid queuing. Paying tolls is similar to paying for other utilities. It’s done monthly and usually by credit card or bank account debit.

Some toll authorities have been slow to take full advantage of electronic toll collection and not all the systems will work together. Dr Gridlock should be urging them to modernize faster, rather than expecting them to play Santa Claus. Peter Samuel