OHIO TURNPIKE Taft wants trucks to go faster, pay less

The cost for a tractor-trailer to cross Ohio on the turnpike is $42.45.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gov. Bob Taft is proposing higher speed limits and lower tolls for truckers on the Ohio Turnpike in an attempt to move the big rigs off overloaded two-lane roads.
The governor announced the proposals Wednesday while touring three areas in northern Ohio where complaints about truck traffic have been rising in the last five years.
Truck traffic began spilling over to smaller roads after an 82 percent toll increase took full effect in 1999.
Taft wants the speed limit for trucks to increase from 55 mph to 65 mph -- the same speed for cars. Ohio is one of six states that have split speed limits.
He also wants reduced tolls for trucks on a trial basis. For big trucks that most often use the turnpike, the toll is $42.45 to cross the state.
"By moving trucks to the turnpike, we will reduce the truck traffic on these smaller routes, improve safety and shrink congestion levels that often gridlock many of our northern Ohio communities," the governor said.
Taft's tour included a stop not far from where six people were killed on a two-lane road when a tractor-trailer collided with a sport utility vehicle.
The driver of the truck wasn't at fault, investigators said, but the accident did highlight the concern about trucks on secondary roads. Big-truck traffic had nearly doubled on the road in the last decade.
Significant stop
Taft also made a stop in Bellevue where mile-long traffic jams are routine on U.S. Route 20, which runs parallel to the turnpike. More than 600 trucks pass through each hour on average, a city survey found in 2000.
The governor wants the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Ohio Turnpike Commission to study his proposals and determine by September what should be done and how to do it.
The turnpike commission is likely to approve the speed increase at its next meeting Aug. 23, said Gary Suhadolnik, the turnpike's executive director.
"It will happen in pretty short order," he said.
Figuring out how to cut the costs for trucks traveling on the toll road will take more time, Suhadolnik said.
He would prefer a fuel tax rebate for truckers as opposed to a toll reduction, which would cut into the turnpike's budget. He said it's not fair for a trucker to pay both the fuel tax and the toll -- both are fees intended for highway improvements -- while on the turnpike.
A fuel tax rebate, though, probably would come out of the state transportation department's budget, which receives the state's fuel tax money.
Other attempts
During recent years, there have been several failed attempts in the Ohio Legislature to raise the speed limit for trucks on interstates.
Opponents at the time included the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which argued that allowing trucks to go faster could cause more accidents. The patrol also spoke out against trying higher speeds on the turnpike.
Patrol spokesman Lt. Richard Zwayer would not say Wednesday whether the agency's position has changed but said the patrol supports a comprehensive plan that would attempt to reduce crashes on secondary routes while encouraging more trucks to use primary routes.
"We understand this is a more broad issue than the speed alone in that area," Zwayer said.
The Ohio Trucking Association has been lobbying the governor and transportation leaders since May to increase the speed on the turnpike, said Larry Davis, the group's president.
It cited studies that showed increasing the speed limit for trucks in other states did not lead to more accidents.
"We've told them that until they lowered the fees and gave us a chance to go a little quicker, they weren't going to get trucks back on the turnpike," Davis said.