Road financing too heavy a toll for Utah?

By Frank Pignanelli & LaVarr Webb
Published: Friday, May 19, 2006 7:54 p.m. MDT
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Webb: One of Utah's great upcoming political debates will be over highway tolls in various forms.

To me, it's a no-brainer. Tolls make sense. Tolls leverage transportation dollars. Tolls are user-pay. Tolling is a free-market alternative to massive tax increases. Tolls increase mobility and expand highway capacity. Tolls finance highway construction but also help pay highway maintenance, which long term is far more expensive than initial construction. So long as free alternate routes exist, tolls benefit everyone, both those who pay and those who don't.

This debate isn't new, or unique, to Utah. Tolling has financed highways for more than half a century in some parts of the country and is commonplace in nearly every U.S. metro area and in Europe. Assuming citizens want mobility and to avoid horrendous congestion, the choice is pretty simple: Do we want massive tax increases or do we want tolling?

Let's suppose a multibillion-dollar investment firm with pension funds to invest wants to spend $2 billion or $3 billion to build and maintain (for 50 or 75 years) a large stretch of the Legacy Parkway or the Mountain View Corridor. It will also pay UDOT a cool $1 billion just for the privilege of doing so (and UDOT can spend that money on other projects such as rebuilding Utah County I-15). In return, the concessionaire (the investment firm) collects tolls. UDOT maintains ownership of the tolled highway and establishes operating rules and procedures.

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Is that a deal we'd take? In my opinion, we'd be insane not to. Texas and other states are enjoying massive infrastructure improvements using that model. Some large investment firms have concluded that transportation infrastructure is an excellent long-term (not just 10 or 20 years, but 50 to 75 years), stable investment, and they want to do business.

No one knows if a Utah highway project would be an attractive investment for these firms, but knowledgeable people say the prospects are reasonably good. Given Utah's growth (a million more people on the west side), highway infrastructure as a 50-year investment is a sure winner.

Even as a Davis County resident, I believe the Legacy Parkway is an ideal tolling prospect because I-15, running parallel, provides a free alternative. Tolling should be considered on ALL new highway capacity.

Will Utahns pay tolls? Of course we will. We're no different from commuters elsewhere, willing to pay a couple of bucks for convenience and less frustration. After all, people are buying $3 coffees and gourmet dog food. Right now, some 1,400 motorists use a half-mile private toll road in Weber County on a typical weekday, paying a buck to save 10 minutes.

Tolling isn't the entire solution to highway financing needs. But it's a market-based, free-enterprise partial answer, as opposed to Frank's preference: Tax, tax, tax.

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