Toll road

“ I am seeking information relative to toll roads. As you may or may not know, the State is considering a bill for a toll road across the seacoast area connecting with the Maine toll road running between Kittery and Portland.
You probably have seen the article in last week's Saturday Evening Post which asserts that the nation can get adequate roads only through a system of toll roads or through some assessment on road users. ”

“ The tollgate-keeper cannot be called upon to restore the ancient system of turnpikes and plank roads to be maintained by a tax upon vehicles passing over them, but there can be provided a general fund in each county sufficient to build up free roads better than the toll roads and with a smaller burden of cost upon the people. ”

“ The Engineering News-Record cautioned against the danger that toll authorities would perpetuate themselves long after the original excuse for their existance (shortage of funds) has passed. “As a result, the publicly owned toll highway of today can become just as pernicious an evil as the privately owned toll road of a century or more ago.” [54]
↑ On the Maine Turnpike the distance between access points averaged 11 miles. ”

“ Two conditions inherent in toll-road operation produce a pronounced effect on the Federal-aid program:
A toll road cannot serve all the traffic for which some route must provide service. The first responsibility of operators of a toll road is to the investors. This is not to imply that in many instances toll roads are not practicable and thoroughly satisfactory answers to traffic problems. In all cases, however, these two factors must be considered in weighing the desirability of including a toll road in the overall highway network. ”

“ If the capacity and facility to be offered by any toll road are actually required, they can be provided in a so-called free highway more cheaply than in the toll road. Apart from the clear advantage of not having to maintain expensive toll collecting facilities, this is true. Toll roads are built with borrowed money, nearly always with money borrowed by way of what are called revenue bonds, that is, bonds predicated solely upon the problematical earnings of the roads themselves. Such bonds necessarily carry a relatively high rate of interest. ”

“ The cost of collecting tolls is such that toll stations are usually operated only where there is sufficient usage to make them profitable. Even in the congested section of the country with a closely spaced road network, the average distance between interchanges on existing toll roads ranges from 7 to 14 miles.
Since short trips predominate in the traffic stream, many drivers are precluded from the use of a toll road merely because their trips are not long enough to permit them to take advantage of it. ”

“ Respondent owns and operates a toll road and a drawbridge which is part of the road. The toll road connects United States Highway No. 17, an interstate arterial highway, with Fort George Island, which lies off the northern coast of Florida, being separated from the mainland by the Intercoastal Waterway. The toll road crosses the Waterway at Sisters' Creek by means of the drawbridge which must be raised frequently to permit the passage of boats engaged in interstate commerce. ”

“ Another large fraction of the traffic that would use a free road, that cannot use a road of the same location and design standard operated as a toll facility, is made up of vehicles moving on trips of shorter lengths than the distance between toll gates. Entrance and exit are possible on a toll highway only at its gates. Every gate represents a substantial capital investment, and continuing large operating expense in salaries of attendants, etc. ”

“ The toll road constitutes an integral part of the highway system of the United States and provides the only means of land communication between Fort George Island and the Florida mainland. It is used extensively by persons and vehicles traveling between the island and points outside Florida in interstate commerce. Mail to and from other states as well as goods produced outside Florida and consigned to merchants on the island are transported over the toll road. Each of the petitioners was employed by respondent in connection with the operation of the toll road and drawbridge. ”

“ It must bear the large cost of toll collection. It is commonly, and almost necessarily financed with revenue bonds at interest rates inevitably higher than the rates the public would have to pay for money borrowed to create an identical free facility. It has been stated above that the standard of alternate free roads must be kept depressed for protection of the investment in a toll road. ”

“ On the other hand, a properly located and designed free road can serve both the through and local traffic. As an indication of the limitation of traffic service that can be provided by toll roads, it was estimated that the Interstate System, if its inadequate sections were completed as toll roads located in keeping with current practice, would serve only two-thirds of the traffic that the system would serve if it were completed as a free system. ”

“ A consideration of the ability of people to pay tolls, as indicated by the distribution of automobile owners by income groups, and further consideration of actual fees which would be charged for specific trips over various sections of the routes, led to the conclusion that not more than about one-third of the vehicles that might use a typical free road of limited access could be regarded as potential traffic for the same road operated as a toll facility. ”

“ It was pointed out that a toll road, for use of which a special fee is asked, would have to provide a capacity that at any time would not be likely to limit the freedom of motion of its users. So high a standard of service is not to be expected in a system of roads built with general taxes. ”

“ The operation of the Cumberland Road included the establishment of the toll system, which provided the revenue for keeping it in repair; and from the tolls the most vital statistics concerning the old road are to be obtained. ”

“ A city may levy reasonable tolls in a market established by itself. A shunpike, or road constructed to facilitate evasion of tolls on a turnpike road, may be closed by injunction. The question of tolls was at one time an important one in international law. ”

“ That is, that the toll road, in order to attract a barely sustaining traffic must be designed to standards adequate for the accommodation of a traffic far greater than that which it can actually attract. The Pennsylvania Turnpike, for example, could serve with complete convenience a traffic of 12,000 vehicles a day. Its actual average traffic is between three and four thousand vehicles a day, the bare minimum commonly considered essential to justify the construction of a 4-lane, divided highway. ”

“ However great may be the remainder of traffic left to the parallel free road, however insistent may be the need for substantial improvement of the facility it affords to that traffic, the design standards of the free road must be held materially lower than those of the toll road, else the latter will be robbed of nearly all of its essential support. ”

“ Public officials then generally hold in abeyance further activity in construction or even in planning and programing improvements along the line of the route and also on roads intersecting or closely paralleling the proposed toll road. Should improvements be made and the toll road later constructed, highway officials might be placed in the position of having wasted public funds or of entering into competition for traffic with a toll authority whose income depends on the continuance of a substantial advantage in traffic service of its facility over that of parallel free facilities. ”

“ The day was bright, and every hour of sun and wind improved the roads, so that by the time we were passing Oneida Castle the going was good. It was dark when we passed through Fayetteville; a little beyond our reserve gallon of gasoline was put in the tank and the run was made over the toll-road to Syracuse on "short rations."
A well-kept toll-road is a boon in bad weather, but to the driver of an automobile the stations are a great nuisance; one is scarcely passed before another is in sight; it is stop, stop, stop. ”

“ A picturesque part of the old system of locomotion was, of course, the turnpike. The keepers of toll-gates found their principal customers in the numerous coaches and the wagons which travelled up and down the main roads, for the farmers could, and frequently did, by a little mutual contriving, manage a cross-cut by their field-ways on to the main road on the town side of a toll-gate, as in the case of Bassingbourn and the Baldock Road into Royston. ”

“ The toll-gate on the St. Foy Road was quite an important institution to the simple habitans, who paid their shilling toll for the privilege of bringing to market a bunch or two of carrots and as many turnips, with a basket of eggs, or some cabbages and onions, in a little cart drawn by a little pony, with which surprising equipage they would stand patiently all morning in St. Anne's market, under the shadow of the old ruined Jesuits' barracks, and return home contented with the three or four shillings realized from their day's traffic.
One of the specialties of the city is its rats. ”

“ When, however, the tolls have repaid with interest the whole of the expenditure, the road or bridge should be thrown open free of toll, that it may be used also by those to whom, unless open gratuitously, it would be valueless ”

“ Most toll roads, however, were built in the monotonous tradition of long tangents that had dominated highway engineering for decades. Nevertheless, the toll roads, as a class, set a high standard of excellence that was hard for the State highway departments with their limited budgets to match. ”

“ The Toll House, standing alone by the wayside under nodding pines, with its streamlet and water-tank; its backwoods, toll-bar, and well-trodden croquet ground; the ostler standing by the stable door, chewing a straw; a glimpse of the Chinese cook in the back parts; and Mr. Hoddy in the bar, gravely alert and serviceable, and equally anxious to lend or borrow books;—dozed all day in the dusty sunshine, more than half asleep. There were no neighbours, except the Hansons up the hill. The traffic on the road was infinitesimal ”

“ It has gone because the road-traffic has grown with the suburbs and the way was not wide enough; but its disappearance removes a landmark proclaiming where town and country met.
The making of the Archway and the road was no public-spirited act, but the commercial undertaking of a Company, whose total expenses were very large, and, by consequence, the tolls exacted extremely high. Pedestrians were not chargeable at ordinary toll-gates, but here they had to pay a penny, or go the tedious way over the Hill. Sixpence was levied on every laden or draught horse. ”

“ To the rising generation, to whom tollgates are almost unknown, a study of the toll system affords novel entertainment, helping one to realize something of one of the most serious questions of public economics of two generations ago. Tollgates averaged one in eighteen or twenty miles in Pennsylvania, and one in ten miles in Ohio, with tolls a little higher than half the rate in Pennsylvania. ”

“ Toll roads are most readily accepted on routes where existing congestion and delays are great and the construction of a controlled-access highway would produce substantial savings of time and increased comfort and safety of travel. Additional acceptance is found when out-of-State vehicles are prominent in the traffic. ”

“ The prospective user of a toll highway will regard lack of adequate width in an entirely different light. He will be in a position to choose between the free and the toll route. To attract the motorist the toll roads must offer advantages that loom larger than the tolls charged. There must he no retarding of traffic flow because of lack of width. Therefore the traffic volume at which a toll facility should be widened is inevitably much lower than that at which free highways have been widened. ”

“ Before railways had come, to clear the roads of most of the cattle and the waggons, the income 90of this toll-gate was considerable, but in these days it is not worth the while of the owner of these petty rights to collect the small gains, and the toll-house has been let as an ordinary cottage, but, in consideration of the tolls, at a rent slightly above its value as a dwelling. ”

“ How a petroleum industry that insists as a cardinal principle upon an absolutely unrestricted competition of outlet will fare if many of our principal lines of highway are occupied by toll facilities is an interesting speculation. One thing is sure, toll roads, wherever they are built, are going to have to scratch for a living. The income derivable from exclusive concessions for various traffic-catering services, including the supply of gasoline, is going to be well-nigh irresistible. ”

“ Pikes were not used, or needed on the National Road. It was always kept in good condition, and travelers thereon, as a rule, paid the required toll without complaining. At distances of fifteen miles, on the average, houses were erected for toll collectors to dwell in, and strong iron gates, hung to massive iron posts, were established to enforce the payment of toll in cases of necessity. These toll houses were of uniform size, angular and round, west of the mountains constructed of brick, and through the mountains, of stone, except the one six miles west of Cumberland, which is of brick. ”

“ Subsequently, the legislature gave authority to sell bonds backed only by the revenues of the parkway. In November 1954, $20 million of such bonds were sold at a net interest cost of 3.24 percent to provide for the extension and widening of certain sections.
Automobiles and buses may use the entire length, but trucks are prohibited from using approximately the northern two-fifths. For this reason, part of the parkway is shown in table 2 and part in table 3.
An unusual feature of this toll road is the manner of collecting tolls. Most arterial toll roads are of the “closed” type. ”