Virginia Seeks Permission to Toll Portion of I-95

This story appears in the May 17 print edition of Transport Topics.

Virginia’s new Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, has asked Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for permission to toll Interstate 95 at the North Carolina line.

Virginia estimates that $30 million to $60 million could be generated annually to use for improvements to the highway “if tolls are $1 to $2 per axle,” McDonnell said in a May 10 announcement.

If granted approval, Virginia would be the first state south of Maryland to toll I-95, which carries traffic from the Canadian border in Maine to the southern tip of Florida.

McDonnell’s plan, which he said replaces a prior attempt by the state to toll Interstate 81, drew immediate criticism from the trucking industry.

American Trucking Associations “opposes tolling existing interstates because it is inefficient and costs more than it does to raise highway funds through fuel taxes,” said ATA spokesman Clayton Boyce.

The federation is seeking “withdrawal” of the toll proposal, Boyce said.

Dale Bennett, executive vice president of the Virginia Trucking Association, said his group has scheduled a meeting with Sean Connaughton, the state’s secretary of transportation, to lay out trucking’s objections.

“If you look at it from an economic aspect, it’s obviously going to increase the cost of doing business for facilities and businesses located in that part of Virginia,” Bennett said.

In addition, he said, tolls would drive truckers to find alternate routes, pushing freight traffic onto secondary roads.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association called McDonnell’s plan “terrible public policy” to charge motorists for a road they already paid for with fuel taxes.

“Truckers are already paying a state fuel tax, state registration and heavy-vehicle use taxes, based upon the miles they run in Virginia — there is no free ride,” said Mike Joyce, director of legislative affairs for OOIDA.

To receive approval to toll I-95, Joyce said, Virginia must prove to the federal government the revenue it already receives — or other funding avenues it could pursue — are not sufficient for maintaining the interstate.

According to 2008 data, 38,000 vehicles traveled the proposed tolled route daily, and 17% of those vehicles were trucks.

Federal law prohibits states from tolling existing stretches of the national highway system, but under growing pressure to find funding for highway maintenance, Congress in 1998 created a pilot program under which the Federal Highway Administration was allowed to grant three states permission to toll existing interstates.

McDonnell’s April 30 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for permission to toll was written after the federal government turned down Pennsylvania’s latest request to toll Interstate 80.

Applications from Missouri to toll Interstate 70 and Virginia to toll Interstate 81 previously received conditional approval.

Neither Missouri nor Virginia, however, tolled the highways and, even if FHWA agrees to substitute I-95 for I-81, it is unclear whether McDonnell could proceed.

Federal officials have said the pilot program cannot move forward until a third state applies and is accepted.

Virginia’s efforts to upgrade I-81 began in 2002 with a proposal to build tolled truck-only lanes. FHWA accepted the state into the pilot program in 2003.

The state had contracted with a consortium of developers and financiers that was to handle modifications to the interstate. However, the consortium, Star Solutions, subsequently said truck lanes would not produce enough revenue to carry out the expansion, which by then included proposals to add new lanes for all traffic.

The consortium said that to raise funds, it would have to toll all vehicles at 30 cents a mile on the 325-mile Virginia portion of the interstate. Late in 2006, faced with strong opposition to the plan, the state abandoned it.

Under the new plan, McDonnell said revenue generated by tolls would be used first to make safety, pavement and infrastructure improvements in the I-95 corridor.

The “deficiencies” in those areas, the governor said, contribute to the highway’s having “one of the highest accident rates of all” of the state’s major transportation corridors.

After the deficiencies are eliminated, he said, the revenue would be directed to expanding capacity on the highway.