Toll Roads
Road Tolls Are Fair and Benefit the Poor
Many people assume incorrectly that road tolls and parking fees harm poor people. In fact, they are usually less regressive than other funding options, and benefit poor people overall, particularly if some revenues are invested in alternative modes.
Illinois Betting On Tolls to Cover Highway Costs
The state of Illinois is actively pushing two highway projects that might fail to pencil-out for users and for state taxpayers.
Lifestyle Solution Sought for Austin's Snarled Traffic
Austin has a giant traffic tangle on its hands. And because the city largely ignored the growing problem for years, transportation planning experts believe only drastic changes in behavior and lifestyle will ease the snarl.
How Interstate Tolling Could Work
A new Reason Study advocates for the "third" revenue option (with gas tax and VMT fee being the first two) for fixing the soon-to-be insolvent Highway Trust Fund - interstate highway tolling, and allowing the states to pursue that option.
Interstate Tolling, the Third Rail of Transportation User Fees, Finds Fans
Discussion on increasing user fee revenue has centered on increasing and/or indexing the gas tax and applying VMT fees. Now some are pushing a return of the original user fee - road tolls applied by states or regions on interstate highways.
Could a Toll Road Boost Maine's Economy at the Cost of its Identity?
Katharine Seelye writes on the clash between business interests and residents of rural Maine, where a proposed private toll road has revealed a difference in values.
Nothing really pays for itself (except maybe toll roads)
Arguments over transportation policy often run as follows: HIGHWAY SUPPORTER: Highways pay for themselves! Buses/trains don't! So highways good and everything else bad bad bad! TRANSIT SUPPORTER: But highways create bad externalities like pollution and climate change! So if highways were taxed at their true cost gas would cost a zillion billion cajillion dollars per gallon! (followed by numerous counterarguments and counter-counterarguments that I won't bore you with, except as written below...) It seems to me that these arguments miss one point: even if the highway system as a whole pays for itself, the system is so chock full of cross-subsidies that each individual road doesn't (except for toll roads).
Can a City Have Too Much Transportation Network?
Yonah Freemark critiques a planned expansion to Dallas' already-extensive highway network, arguing that it undermines billions of dollars in light rail investment and sets its downtown on a path of stunted growth.
Expressway Construction Faces Challenges
According to Tollroads News, "Without any tolling option, New York State DOT has been forced to drop a long planned rebuild of an old segment of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) and a portion of the Gowanus Expressway, both I-278 in Brooklyn."
Tropical Island Gets Its First Expressway
Sri Lanka, an island nation of 20 million people, has just completed its first express highway, which, as Toll Roads News is quick to point out, is financed through a toll system.
Free Interstate Lanes Must Remain Free, States John Mica
House Transportation And Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Fl, in this opinion in the Orlando Sentinel, states his position on tolling the nation's interstate highways. He supports tolling only if applied to newly constructed lanes.
Tolls Could Be Key to Rebuilding Highway System
With the cost of maintaining highways growing exponentially, Peter Samuel of TollRoadsNews comments on the real possibilities for using tolls to fund highway projects.
Labeling the Gas Tax
The gas tax should be viewed as that, a tax, and anything else is fundamentally wrong, writes Alex Marshall.
When is a Freeway Not a Freeway?
When there is a toll, of course. But the Federal Highway Administration uses the word indiscriminately, confusing the matter, writes Peter Samuel of Toll Roads News.
Internalizing the Externalized: The Case of Roads
In a previous blog post, my discussion of externalities, public goods and roads spurred an unexpectedly lengthy set of posts and repostes. In this article, I want to address a trickier topic: Whether road users have effectively shifted the burden for paying for roads to non-users and whether the reason we pay for roads out of general taxes is a result of that lobbying effort.
Could More Tolling Replace the Gas Tax?
Melissa Lafsky at The Infrastructurist poses the question. With raising the gas tax a political impossibility, how can we repair our ailing infrastructure? A lot more toll roads, says Lafsky.
Texas Toll Roads Go Cash Free
North Texas Tollway (NTTA) has announced their intention to go all electronic for their toll roads by the end of the year, and Florida will soon follow.
Paying Toll at a Tollbooth? There's An App For That
Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) is about to test run a system where drivers can pay their toll using only their iPhone, Blackberry, or MS Windows Mobile-enabled phone.
The Age of Tolls
Robert McCartney reports on the coming onslaught of toll roads in the D.C. area, and the possibility of a 'vehicle miles traveled' option in the future.
Toll Road Fiasco in Ohio
Last week, the Ohio Turnpike debuted its E-Z Pass toll system -- with disastrous results, says TollRoadsNews.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority
