# Presentation: 669877

## TALKING FREIGHT SEMINAR: Truck Separated Lanes/Truck Tolling MARCH 16, 2005

**DARRIN ROTH**
**DIRECTOR OF HIGHWAY OPERATIONS**
**AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS**

## TRUCK LANES – POSITIVES

- Safety
- Eliminates operational differences that create conflicts
- Safer working environment for professional truck drivers: three-quarters of car-truck crashes begin with the actions of the car driver
- Opportunity for productivity improvements
- Less congestion through increased capacity and better traffic flow (more homogenous mix of vehicles)
- Better reliability
- Changes in size and weight
- Highway design can be tailored to fit vehicles
- Thicker pavements, stronger bridges, better geometrics for truck lanes
- Less expensive pavements, bridges, geometric features for passenger vehicle lanes

## TRUCK LANES – NEGATIVES

- Potential for reduced access if mandatory – shifts traffic to surface streets
- Unique design features could produce safety problems
- Potential merge issues if trucks mix with traffic in general purpose lanes to enter/exit
- If a single lane, could result in reduced spacing, accident clearance, emergency response, construction zone problems

## TOLL FINANCING

**Trucking industry prefers highway funding through traditional methods, i.e. federal and state fuel taxes, registration fees **
**These fees can be passed on, tolls cannot, causing truckers to avoid toll roads:**
**More accidents – non-Interstates’ accident rate at least 4 times higher**
**Local congestion, pollution, noise problems**
**Higher infrastructure costs on alternate routes**
**Local deliveries bear the greatest burden**
**Traffic, revenue projections routinely underestimate evasion**

## TOLL FINANCING

**If tolls are used: **
**Use of the toll road must be voluntary **
**Tolls on new lanes only...no tolls on existing Interstate lanes**
**All revenues go to the project**
**Highway user groups, business community united in their opposition to tolls on existing Interstates**
**General public will not accept tolls on existing Interstates**

## Reason Foundation Study

**Meets all of ATA’s criteria, but concerned about single lane design**
**Trucking industry unsure about support because voluntary lanes could become mandatory if revenues too low **
**federal law allowing tolls on existing lanes is a barrier to acceptance**
**Most promising truck lanes fill gaps in existing longer combination vehicle network**

## I-81 Virginia

**Mandatory tolled truck-only lanes in center median – 325 miles**
**No plans for LCVs**
**$13 billion total cost**
**VDOT acknowledges truck-only tolls won’t work under scenario being considered**

## I-81 Traffic Diversion

**Toll rate at completion in 2019: 37 cents/mile = 25 cents/mile, 2004 inflation adjusted **
**Historically trucks make 2-4 cents per mile in profit **
**Causes truck to divert unless alternate routes are more costly**

## I-81 Traffic Diversion

## I-81 Traffic Diversion

## Closing Thoughts

**The current system of financing and building highways is not working as well as needed**
**Tolled truck lanes can be a limited solution under certain circumstances...**
**...****BUT****...planners and policy makers must have a much better understanding of how the trucking industry works to avoid unintended consequences, especially how services are priced and routing decisions are made**