toll

2012/12/23: State senator Ron Young (Dem, Frederick), a former mayor of Frederick City and long the most prominent local pol has introduced a bill in the Maryland state Senate (SB15) to seek the federal OK for a toll on US15 at a single toll point at the Pennsylvania border. The bill scheduled for a first reading January 9 specifies that the toll revenues raised be used for:

It's high time highways supported themselves. Gasoline and diesel tax revenues are needed much more urgently for reducing dangerously bloated government deficits.  The federal government should stop spending money on highways or transit. Those needs should be managed by the states.

2012-09-05: The McDonnell administration in Virginia has drastically scaled back its plans for tolling I-95. In its recently filed application to the Feds, two toll points have been reduced to one. And the lone mainline toll point is located in the most lightly trafficked segment of I-95 in the state in a rural setting 22 miles north of the North Carolina border.

2012-06-18: Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) have received the federal OK for the rebuild of the Scudder Falls Bridge and modernization of the Interstate on both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides of the river. This is Commission's largest current capital project.

The Federal Highway Administration has issued a Finding Of No Significant Impact (or FONSI) as requested by the DRJTBC.

Missouri senator Mike Kehoe (Repub, Jefferson City) who sponsored the bill (SB752) to allow tolls on I-70 says it is effectively blocked in the state senate transport committee. He is quoted in the StLouis Post Dispatch he'd most surprised fit he bill moves further this year.

Sri Lanka, the ancient tropical island nation of 20 million people off the southern tip of India got its first expressway at the weekend, a 60 mile, 95km Southern Expressway between Colombo,  the country's capital city and largest metro area in the middle west coast and Galle on the southwest corner of the island. Built by the national government it has cash toll plazas to raise money to defray some $495m borrowed from aid agencies to finance the $700m project.

The Georgia I-85 toll express lanes (GA85XL) now in their eighth week of operation continue to attract more patronage, but tolls while growing, are still low per mile.  We've worked on seven full weeks of data. Average weekday traffic in the variably priced lanes is now 11,210 vs 4,170 in the first week.

Georgia I-85 Express Lanes (GA/I-85XL) traffic is growing strongly in the third week of operations without loss of travel time advantages as compared to the second week. Tuesday toll-paying traffic Oct 18 is reported at 9200 vs 5773 Tues Oct 11 and 3513 Tues Oct 4.

The launch of managed toll lanes this week on I-85 northeast of Atlanta was so mismanaged that the state Governor intervened after three days and very publicly ordered changes.  For three nights TV, radio and the press in Atlanta reported the fiasco of noticeably worse congestion in the general purpose lanes alongside almost empty "Express" or toll managed lanes on the big highway northeast out of Atlanta, the first in a huge proposed network.

The doctrine that tolls should only be used for adding extra capacity on Interstates - espoused by the Democrat Party administration's transport sec Ray LaHood and the Republican leader of the US House transport committee Cong John Mica alike - is not supported by public opinion according to a survey published by HNTB.