U.S. Voters Agree: A Modest Increase in Bridge Tolls Pays for Itself

From Silicon Valley to Ohio, voters are getting to have their say on toll rates. And a clear verdict is coming through: When it comes to clearing traffic gridlock and boosting mobility, a modest increase in bridge tolls pays for itself.

In California, a recent poll found that the majority of prospective voters would pay up to $3 more for bridge crossings to relieve congestion, the Mercury News reports. Three time zones away in Ohio and Kentucky, 61% of voters said they would accept a $1 toll hike on the Brent Spence Bridge, notes WCPO Cincinnati—with 34% calling the idea “very acceptable”.

“Voters are telling pollsters what highway professionals have been hearing for a long time,” says IBTTA Executive Director and CEO Patrick Jones. “The point of surface transportation is to help people get where they’re going, not to keep them sitting in traffic. When congestion is bad and getting worse, people understand that a toll is an investment that helps them get things done and live their lives.”

$5 Billion Buys a Lot

In the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, the tolling story begins with “constant gridlock turning freeways into parking lots, BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] trains packed to the gills, and mounting concerns about how to accommodate continued growth in the region,” the Mercury News notes. In the poll, funded by SPUR, a transportation policy think tank, the Bay Area Council, and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, an overwhelming 85% of 9,000 respondents said traffic congestion was worse this year than last.

And 74% said they’d pay a higher toll to cross the area’s seven state bridges if that was what it took to fund “big regional projects” to cut congestion and improve transit.

The tolls would raise $5 billion over 25 years—enough to add freeway carpool and express lanes, improve bus rapid transit and expand ferry service, buy 300 new BART cars, and extend light rail to San José. Legislators are expected to finalize a project wish list before it goes out to voters for formal approval.

But the overarching theme is the urgent need to improve a deteriorating situation. “A lot of people are deeply, deeply frustrated by having to be in traffic all the time,” Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesperson Randy Rentschler told the News. “The focus here is on congestion relief along the bridge corridors. It’s not trying to rehab every local street.”

The Value of $1

Farther north, the poll by the Cincinnati Regional Chamber found that support for tolling crossed party lines, with voters of all political affiliations “likely to back an elected official who supports completing long-promised Brent Spence Bridge improvements,” WCPO notes.

Tolls aren’t the only option to pay for the work, and at least one state legislator criticized the federal government for not investing more heavily in the project. But when it came to embrace a wider toolbox of options to get their bridge built and their congestion problems solved, nearly two-thirds of poll respondents knew what to do.

Tolling delivers a great return on investment. So does your participation in IBTTA’s 85^th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, September 10-12, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. Register today!