Bridge Tunnel & Turnpike Association Promotes Tolls
Friday, September 14, 2012
By: Matthew Peddie

The International Bridge Tunnel and Turnpike Association, which held its annual conference in Orlando this week, is promoting toll roads as an alternative to flat-lining gas tax revenue. The association says there are a number of states thinking about expanding their toll road networks as they look for ways to fund highway programs

Neil Gray the Government affairs director for the International Bridge Tunnel and Turnpike Association says tolls are a good option to fix aging roads and build new ones. 

“Not that tolling is an easy sell," says Gray. "But certainly if you can show the economic development benefits associated with that transportation facility, that can be seen as a necessary thing, you need it sooner than later.”

Gray says drivers should realize the money they spend on tolls generally goes straight to paying for road building and upkeep.

"With a gas tax it's much more diffuse: the money goes to Tallahassee to be reallocated back out, or it goes to D.C. and is reallocated out to the 50 states."

Gray says highway trust funds based on gas taxes are already depleted by inflation, rising construction costs and increased fuel efficiency in vehicles, and those challenges will only get worse.

But toll roads can be a delicate political subject.

Before the August  primary election the US House Transportation Committee chair, Winter Park Republican John Mica, was criticized for a transportation bill that allows states the option to build new toll lanes on existing free highways- like I-4.