Maine Turnpike to study improvements at existing York plaza & look deeper at cashless

Maine Turnpike Authority's board have asked HNTB engineering consultants to study options for upgrading toll collection at the existing York toll plaza. HNTB are also being asked to do a more in-depth study of cashless all-electronic tolling option.

The Turnpike is responding to a request by local elected officials (called 'selectmen') in nearby York township in the context of a major outcry against their plan to find a new site for a plaza to do cash plus highway speed electronic toll collection. HNTB initially ruled out improvements at the existing site and laid out four new sites for the new toll plaza.

The existing toll plaza at Mile Marker 7 also known as the Southern Toll Plaza fails all the basic criteria for a good traditional plaza. It's on a curve, at the bottom of a hill, and has a local interchange nearby, generating weaving problems.

The initial study reported that upgrading at the existing site "fails to address the safety concerns" and that: "Full efficiency of highway speed tolling will not be realized due to the location on a curve and near a hill. A costly interchange reconfiguration and reconstruction will be necessary resulting in confusing and complicated traffic patterns..."

http://www.maineturnpike.com/pdf/MTA-TechnicalReport_LD534.pdf

However the Turnpike has run into overwhelming local opposition to its plan to select a new site and the Board decided at their May 15 meeting to get a detailed outline of options for upgrading toll collection at the existing toll plaza site.

"No one will be satisfied until every stone has been turned over to study the options at the existing (York) plaza," Bruce Pelletier, a Turnpike spokesman told us.

The new study due to be complete late June will examine construction of full fledged cash plus central open road tolling as a baseline.

This involves four open road toll lanes and fifteen cash lanes (8 southbound, 7 northbound). This is two more lanes than the existing toll plaza and with the shoulder and barrier required alongside highway speed lanes would take up about an extra 18m (60ft) of overall pavement width over the existing 90m (295ft).

A plaza in which stop-to-pay traffic must be separated from highway speed traffic also needs greater length to manage the merge safely than the existing plaza where everyone stops to pay, or at least slows to 10mph (16km/hr) in curb constrained lanes.

An official said that many acres of extra land would be required and the highway would have to realigned to meet modern interstate standards at the existing site. All around the plaza is wetland so major environmental mitigation would be required if the project were able to get through an environmental permitting process and get US approval.

Other options with less impact are likely to be compromise upgrades that don't fully meet modern standards but address some of the deficiencies of the existing toll plaza.

Cashless AET to be looked at in greater depth

HNTB is also being asked to look "in greater depth" at cashless all-electronic tolling. This would involve dispensing with cash collection and doing video tolling for those motorists without transponders. NCTA, CTRMA, MDX, NTTA, E470PHA are among US agencies firmly committed to cashless AET with planning being initiated by PANYNJ and MTAB&T. PANYNJ which operates the George Washington Bridge, the busiest bridge in the world, has nominally set 2012 as the year for implementing cashless tolling.

However Pelletier said: "From what we know now cashless is not a practical option for us. It is only being done in places with a high percentage of (transponder) users. York toll plaza is close to the border and we handle a high percentage of motorists. Our traffic mix just won't allow us to collect a $1.75 toll from motorists in Pennsylvania, New Jersey... It would be highly risky."

The study will have to consider whether the Turnpike won't have much the same problem of chasing distant motorists with the planned highway speed or open road toll lanes down the center.

Maine Turnpike had at least one observer at last week's demonstrations of video tolling by North Carolina Turnpike Authority - which will do no cash collection.

BACKGROUND: The York toll plaza is the premier toll point in the Maine Turnpike system collecting $34m in tolls based on a daily average of 41k transactions. However summer and weekend trtaffic can get as high as 65k/day.

Traffic is about equally divided between Mainers and out-of-state motorists. Truck traffic is a high 15% of vehicles. 55% of transactions are by transponder (E-ZPass).

The York plaza was built in 1969 as a temporary 11 lane facility at a time when there was talk of abolishing tolls. However as that silliness subsided the plaza was expanded and electronic tolling introduced.

reports on York toll plaza http://www.maineturnpike.com/about/news.php

see earlier report http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3442

TOLLROADSnews 2008-05-20