Replace Outer Beltway with New Link To Gainesville, I-75, Tampa

[tufsu1]

in this case, the private company builds and opertates the road....which may mean that tolls are fairly high in order to recoup the investment....but that's the catch-22....if tolls are too high, ridership (traffic volumes) will be lower...which means less revenue.

[tufsu1]

I wonder if they will attempt to add tolls on the stretch in Duval County.

I'm betting that the part south of Cecil Commerce (new World Drive) will be....right now that's only planned as a 2-lane road....when they go to 4 lanes and make it an expressway, the tolls will appear.

[stjr]

I dont mind tolls to pay off the loan required to build the road.  The users of the road should shoulder most of the expense.  My problem is the toll needs to go away the very minute the bill is paid.  Open the gates and let the cars move freely.  When the toll remains to simply generate income it becomes a tax on the users.

Eliminate the toll when the bill is paid!

Don't count on it.  We had tolls long after JTA paid off bonds for its projects.  And, we are still paying for those "paid off" bonds through the local option half-cent tax that was substituted for the tolls when they were voted out. I expect we will also pay the other half-cent local option sales taxes that was imposed for the Better Jax Plan long after its bonds are paid off.  Government becomes addicted to these revenues like a drug addict to his next hit.

Also, to say one will willingly pay the tolls when no one has an any idea of how much they will be is pointless.  Everything has a value, and everyone has a point in which they would NOT pay the tolls.  As already mentioned, the higher the tolls, the lower the traffic count.  The lower the traffic, the more the toll charge needs to be.  As some point, there may be so little traffic, the project is not worthy of our time.  If this free market approach was properly applied throughout history, our whole transportation infrastructure and the issue of urban sprawl would look entirely different today.  Surely, the car for every person would not exist.

[BridgeTroll]

Government becomes addicted to these revenues like a drug addict to his next hit.

This is precisely... exactly... my point.

[tufsu1]

there is a reason for keeping tolls in place....

once you've paid off construction, you still have maintenance costs....whch are on averaghe about 7% of capital costs per year....so every 13-14 years, you're paying for the road all over again.

[BridgeTroll]

Then you lower the toll accordingly or add the cost of maintenance of that road or bridge to the maintenance budget for other similar roads or bridges.

[Doctor_K]

there is a reason for keeping tolls in place....

once you've paid off construction, you still have maintenance costs....whch are on averaghe about 7% of capital costs per year....so every 13-14 years, you're paying for the road all over again.

One more reason for Rail?  Lower O&M costs per-mile or some such I'd imagine.

[tufsu1]

O&M costs for transit are an ever higher percentage...although rail is better than bus

[FayeforCure]

The Outer Beltway Project is already a project that will fail to meet expectations when finished.  Here is another notch in that belt from today's Florida Times Union - the charging of tolls:

That's not really new.  I'm pretty sure the plan has been for it to be tolled since the beginning.  That is how the PPP will work.

PPPs aren't working that well anymore, if ever they did:

California: Toll Road Revenue Continues to Decline
Orange County, California officials seek to expand toll road that continues to experience double-digit drop in demand.

The Federal Highway Administration reported that motorists drove 108 billion fewer miles last year, a 3.6 percent drop from 2007 levels. While significant, this reduction -- which has an impact on gasoline tax revenues -- is far less severe than the reduction in travel experienced by toll roads across the country.

The continued drop in toll road use on well regarded facilities like Orange County, California's 91 Express Lanes brings into question the long-term sustainability of tolling as a form of revenue collection compared to the more modern gasoline excise tax.

"Today, after five years of ownership, the 91 Express Lanes continues to create national and international interest as a successful model of contemporary toll road operation," the Orange County Transportation Authority 2008 Annual Report boasted. "Fiscal Year 2008 witnessed the start of the current economic downturn, and the state of the economy no doubt exerted an influence on the number of vehicle trips."

Those trips fell off 17 percent in 2008 as 40,000 motorists each week decided paying nearly $10 to take a ten-mile trip was no longer worth it. Traffic has continued to decline 14 percent so far for 2009, bringing traffic to levels not seen since 2005. As a result, the road's revenue fell to $39,636,000 last year and is down 12 percent in the current fiscal year. In contrast, federal gas tax revenue grew slightly in February from the previous month. Although very little is spent to collect the federal gas tax at the distributor level, the cost of tolling personnel and equipment cuts into 23.7 percent of the tolls collected from drivers, forcing drivers to pay an extra $8 million each year to maintain the same level of service.

Despite the recent poor performance, Orange County Transportation Authority officials are preparing to expand the tolled portion of SR 91 another ten miles into Riverside County.

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/27/2716.asp

One of the reasons our roads and bridges are falling apart is public hostility to tax increases -- gasoline taxes in particular. This attitude, in turn, is largely the product of the generalized distrust of government that conservatives have stoked for decades.So we've starved the beast for years, and now the utterly predictable consequences have come to pass.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310436361422253-email.html

Federal fuel taxes of 18 cents per gallon, haven't changed since 1993! An with less driving being done and inflation making the 18 cents tax, buy much less than in the past, it's no wonder we have a crumbling infrastructure!!

A 2003 Federation Highway Administration study found that 94% of federal roadway funding came from fuel taxes, 86.3% of state roadway funding came from fuel taxes, and 11.1% of local roadway funding came from fuel taxes.

The study found that altogether in the U.S., 69.6% of roadway funding ($79.6 billion) came from fuel taxes and 30.1% ($33.4 billion) from other funding sources. The other funding sources are most typically general tax revenue.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States

[thelakelander]

O&M costs for transit are an ever higher percentage...although rail is better than bus

On the other hand capital costs per mile are typically significantly cheaper for transit.

[FayeforCure]

I believe that a lot could be done by indexing the federal gas tax ( to adjust fo inflation), or to simply have it be a percentage of our gas price.

Back in 1993, when gas was about $1 per gallon, the 18 cent gas tax represented about 18% of the cost per gallon. Since then, the cost per gallon has doubled, so I guess that same 18% would translate to about 36 cents.

It's the kind of proactive thinking that has been lacking in government.

It seems they are always reacting to situations, rather than anticipating changes and planning accordingly.

[stjr]

A 2003 Federation Highway Administration study found that 94% of federal roadway funding came from fuel taxes, 86.3% of state roadway funding came from fuel taxes, and 11.1% of local roadway funding came from fuel taxes.

The study found that altogether in the U.S., 69.6% of roadway funding ($79.6 billion) came from fuel taxes and 30.1% ($33.4 billion) from other funding sources. The other funding sources are most typically general tax revenue.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States

[/quote]

In other words, we taxpayers are subsidizing road building and developers who manufacture the urban sprawl such road building supports while demanding Amtrak and other mass transit attempt to pay its own way and allowing other growth-related and quality of life concerns such as adequate schools to be underfunded.  We won't even talk about the endless destruction of natural lands needed to protect our air, water, and to commune from time to time with nature.

[thelakelander]

Bingo!

[FayeforCure]

In other words, we taxpayers are subsidizing road building and developers who manufacture the urban sprawl such road building supports while demanding Amtrak and other mass transit attempt to pay its own way and allowing other growth-related and quality of life concerns such as adequate schools to be underfunded.  We won't even talk about the endless destruction of natural lands needed to protect our air, water, and to commune from time to time with nature.

Developers want to be subsidized by taxpayers, true.

But my point is that we as taxpayers are doing an exceedingly poor job at funding public infrastructure in general. Why else do we have a "crumbling infrastructure"? The crumbling infrastructure is directly related to very low tax revenues, because the effective gas tax has dropped from 18% in 1993, to only 9% now that gas is $2. And when gas was $4 per gallon last summer, the 18 cents tax we paid represented less than 5%.

No revenues, no bridge repairs, and you see collapsed bridges as the result.

Florida Has 276 Structurally Deficient Bridges; Six In Central Florida

POSTED: Thursday, August 2, 2007
UPDATED: 8:45 am EDT August 3, 2007



Florida has 276 bridges -- including six in Central Florida -- that are considered structurally deficient, which is the same designation the Minnesota bridge had before it suddenly collapsed.

Those 276 bridges in Florida are on the same federal government list of structurally deficient bridges as the one in Minneapolis that fell into the Mississippi River during rush hour on Wednesday.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/13808569/detail.html

[thelakelander]

I wonder how many existing bridges we could repair with the money it will take to build 9B?  I believe the money is there.  The issue may be on what it's being spent on.