Obama Wants Tolling Ban Eliminated For Existing Interstate Highways
President Obama has proposed lifting the ban on tolling existing interstate highways.
The proposal is contained in the four-year transportation plan the Obama administration sent to Congress on April 29.
Under the proposal, states could toll to raise money to upgrade the interstates that run through them, providing the Department of Transportation has approved a state’s plan.
But also under the president’s proposal, DOT is to draw up criteria by which toll plans would be approved.
Tolling the interstate system is a controversial issue that has been opposed for decades by the trucking industry, as well as shipper and manufacturing groups.
“We continue to believe that tolling is an inefficient way of raising revenue for infrastructure,” American Trucking Associations spokesman Sean McNally said.
“It creates the opportunity for a patchwork of inconsistently maintained highways, and we believe as movers of interstate commerce that a strong federal program based on federal user fees is the way we should maintain our transportation network,” he added.
ATA has said that the best user fee is the federal fuel tax and that it should be increased, something Congress has not endorsed in more than 20 years.
“Apparently, all options are on the table except the one that works,” McNally said.
If recent attempts to toll aging interstate highways in order to improve them is an indication of what will happen when states advance tolling plans, the president’s proposal may not get much use by the states, even if Congress agrees to lift the ban.
Under a federal pilot program, Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri were told they could lay plans to toll interstates, but the outcry was so great at the state level that lawmakers in all three passed measures banning tolling on the roads.
