Traffic reports so far this year gloomy

Posted on Tue, 2009-03-10 21:13

There are only scattered reports of traffic on US tollroads so far this calender year but none we've come across are encouraging.

On the West Virginia Turnpike overall traffic in the first two months is down 9% on the same period last year. Truck traffic which generates the most revenue is down 16%.

Massachusetts Turnpike traffic was down strongly 2009-Jan on 2008-Jan especially in the Boston metro area.  Tunnel traffic was down 8.5% 1.44m vs 1.57m last year with the drop largest (11.8%) at the Williams Tunnel which principally serves Boston airport. Revenue at the tunnels was down 10.3% from $5.52m to $4.98m.

Barrier system tolls on the Boston metro area of the Turnpike proper were down 9.2% in transactions 2009-Jan on 2008-Jan and 10.0% in revenue ($5.70m vs $6.33m 2009-Jan vs 2008-Jan).

Ticket system tolls from the New York State Line in to IC-15 in Newton were  down 6.4% to 7.44m 2009-Jan from 7.95m in 2008-Jan. Revenue was down even more, 8.6% to $9.48m 2009-Jan from $10.37m 2008-Jan.

The biggest drops in the ticket system were Exits 12, 11A and 11 - Framingham, Milbury and Westborough.  These are in the outer suburbs of Boston about 35km, 44km and 60km (22mi, 27mi and 37miles) out from central Boston.

California

In Orange County California traffic on 91 Express Lanes (see table above) continues to be down on corresponding previous period. In the first two months of the year it has been down on average 7.9%. This year's decline on early 2007 is 18.7%. Traffic that in 2007 was averaging 271k/week in early 2008 was 239k/wk and this year is 220k/wk.

Foothill/Eastern (CA241/261/133) the larger of the two full tollroads in Orange Co continues to have traffic well below the same month a year ago. January 2009 was running average daily 155.8k vs 169.6k 2008-Jan, a drop of 8.2%, continuing the declines of last year.

The San Joaquin Hills TR (CA73) is running 79.8k/day 2009-Jan vs 90.4k 2008-Jan, a drop of 10.9% about the same decline running through much of last year.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-03-10