Interstate Tolling Can Make American Infrastructure Great Again
It may be a while before the slogan shows up on a collection of white-on-red caps, but Make American Infrastructure Great Again was the audacious goal that Cal State, Northridge economics professor Robert Krol put forward last month, in a column for The Fiscal Times.
“When we do finally get around to focusing on the president’s infrastructure plan, the provision eliminating tolling restrictions on interstate highways deserves particular attention,” Krol wrote last month, in a released timed to coincide with the White House’s Infrastructure Week. While the idea “requires some work to sell”, he said the more open-minded approach to tolling “would provide a more stable source of revenues for public or even, potentially, private efforts to manage interstate highway infrastructure.”
How to Pitch the Plan
Krol offered the Trump Administration a set of talking points for pitching the plan.
First, he said, point out that the fuel taxes that deliver about three-quarters of the money in the federal Highway Trust Fund “can no longer be relied upon to provide a stable funding source for highway programs.”
Next, distinguish tolls and user fees from other forms of taxation that undercut economic efficiency, by encouraging people to work or invest less. “Tolls also affect behavior, but in a good way,” he wrote. “Tolls reduce congestion and pollution.”
Finally, connect tolling to a more central role for the private sector in building, maintaining, and managing highways. “A concern over expanding the role of the private sector is that the government loses long-term control of the highway,” Krol noted. “However, what most people have in mind is not a transfer of ownership or full privatization, but a lease agreement for a fixed period of time. The government maintains ownership of the highway.”
A Dealmaker in Washington
Krol made his way through a series of facts and arguments that are familiar to IBTTA members, but heard all too infrequently from people outside the tolling community.
He pointed to the time and fuel savings in strategies that reduce congestion, using all-electronic tolling systems that make the tolling experience “as easy as shopping at Amazon.”
He cited international experience to argue that, “while people are skeptical at first, once they see the benefits of faster trips, support grows.”
And he reminded readers that tolling need not be deployed by all jurisdictions, or on all roads or lanes. Managed lanes are a proven congestion-buster that still offers riders the option of using toll-free general purpose lanes. But simply lifting the restriction on interstate tolling would allow states “the option to use tolls where they make sense”. That has long been IBTTA’s mantra.
It all adds up to deploying the bully pulpit of the presidency to make the case for a long-overdue transportation solution. Voters sent Donald Trump to Washington as “a dealmaker who could get things done in Washington,” Krol concluded. “He now needs to sell the idea that tolls can play a key role in making U.S. infrastructure great again.”
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