Governor seeks more options for toll roads

COLUMBUS (AP) — Gov. Ted Strickland is asking Ohio legislators to allow state transportation officials to charge tolls for new roads and bridges.

The proposal to charge tolls, which could raise revenue for construction while easing congestion, are part of the governor’s proposal for the upcoming two-year budget. Tolls would not apply to existing roads, Strickland said.

“There’s much more of a direct nexus with who pays and who benefits,” said Robert Poole, director of transportation studies for the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit economic think tank in Los Angeles. “The other advantage is you don’t have to wait 10 or 20 years to pull together enough money to do a big project.”

Strickland said he has no specific project in mind, but he said one idea would be to build truck-specific toll lanes along routes with heavy truck traffic.

Since 1955, the Ohio Turnpike has been the state’s only toll highway. About 26 states use tolling, and seven others are considering it, Ohio Department of Transportation director Jolene Molitoris said.

“We just see it as a tool in the toolbox,” she said.

Strickland also would like to form several regional transportation authorities, each focused on one new project with oversight from state officials. Under the plan, an extra $170 million would be pumped into a state revolving loan fund to start the projects.

Charging tolls on a completed road or bridge project would be one of several ways to pay back that money.

Republican state Rep. Matthew Dolan of Novelty has questioned whether the regional authorities are just a way of shifting the funding burden away from the state and federal government.

Charging tolls has been considered in other Ohio projects, including for the Interstate 280 bridge over the Maumee River near Toledo. Authorities ruled out charging tolls on that project because drivers had too many ways of driving around toll booths, said Warren Henry, vice president for transportation for the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments.

A toll would be more practical for projects in high-traffic areas, such as Cleveland and Columbus, Henry said, adding that relieving congestion has been the purpose of metropolitan toll projects in Texas and Florida.

The creation of regional authorities to manage toll roads near Miami and other major Florida cities has rerouted toll revenues directly back into those regions, instead of through state bureaucracies, said Cindy Polo-Serantes, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority.

“We can think of, design and implement a project much more quickly,” she said. “We’re a government agency, but we’re run like a business.”