IBTTA Builds Wider Partnerships to Move America Forward

A centerpiece of the strategy behind IBTTA’s Moving America Forward campaign is to open conversations and find common ground with other transportation stakeholders. Especially organizations that might initially be surprised to hear from us.

In the last year, we’ve done exactly that, with senior representatives of the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the American Automobile Association (AAA) appearing at the 2014 Summit on Legislation, Policy & Infrastructure Finance in Washington and the 82^nd Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Austin, Texas. Both panels pointed to shared concerns that IBTTA, ATA, and AAA will bring to this year’s highway reauthorization debate.

“The worst [highway] bottlenecks are very problematic for our members, as well as the motoring public,” said ATA Second Vice Chairman Pat Thomas, Vice President, Public Affairs for UPS Inc. “So there is a value proposition to doing some different things that would move traffic along at a better rate.”

While he reiterated his organization’s opposition to tolling existing interstate capacity, Thomas said truckers accept existing toll roads and support tolls to build new capacity.

AAA is more inclined to support tolling on new capacity than existing roadways. The association’s Vice President, Public Affairs, Kathleen Bower, said individual AAA clubs have taken a range of positions on the issue. “It varies from region to region, depending, frankly, on the user’s experience with various types of facilities.”

She added that AAA supports all-electronic tolling as an innovation that “improves safety, helps with emissions, certainly speeds traffic and helps reduce congestion.”

Thomas and Bower both welcomed an approach to “value-added tolling” on interstate highways, put forward last year by the Reason Foundation, that:

·       Limits the use of tolling revenues to the tolled facility

·       Charges only enough to fully cover capital and operating costs over the life of the facility

·       Introduces tolls only once a facility is finished

·       Uses tolls to replace, not supplement, existing fuel taxes

·       Delivers a higher level of service on tolled interstates.

The essence of good negotiating is to disagree where you must, dig in your heels when you have to, but keep an open mind and always seek out opportunities to advance a common agenda. IBTTA and its members and partners have spent years building a modern, all-electronic, interoperable tolling system. Judging by the conversations we’ve had over the last year, we’re getting closer to a breakthrough on the finance and funding strategy that will be needed to combat congestion and boost safety for highway drivers across the country.

Be a part of the solution! It isn’t too late to register for IBTTA’s Washington Briefing, March 29-31 in Washington, DC.