With the cost of maintaining highways growing exponentially, Peter Samuel of TollRoadsNews comments on the real possibilities for using tolls to fund highway projects.
Samuel was attending a recent panel given by the IBTTA, where Ed Regan of Wilbur Smith Associates gave a presentation on the topic. Regan explained that rebuilding the highway system is 10-20 times more expensive than the original cost because greenfield construction is so much easier than repairing and expanding freeways with traffic on them. Tools, says Regan, could help take up the slack:
"Tolling could take on the job of rebuilding the interstates. Current toll revenues are around $10b, and they would need to be increased at least three-fold to take on the Interstate Rebuild job, which Regan calls "probably the most important transport investment in American history.""
Regan admits that there is "little demand for new capacity, but a huge demand for rebuild funds..."
Read the full story: Declining US$s for highways - where tolling fits in
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