about the need to review their place in the highway systems of the country.
Acceptance of toll roads
Financing of roads through the sale of revenue bonds has developed because provision of public funds through accepted channels has lagged far behind highway needs. In this situation, revenue-bond financing has provided many miles of badly needed controlled-access highways when other means have failed. The financial success of the early examples of the modern toll road and the rapid extension of toll roads on some of our most important routes raises serious questions as to the place of the toll road in the Federal-aid systems and to its effect on the Federal-aid program.
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.
With all highway needs so pressing, administrators in a State are reluctant to ask for general increases in taxes to build roads of principal interest to one section of the State or to drivers from other States. At the same time, drivers traversing the section of the State where a controlled-access highway is needed, particularly those from out of the State who are usually on long trips and are infrequent users of the road, are not reluctant to pay a toll for the assurance of rapid travel on a safe and uncongested highway.
Toll roads already in operation have relieved congestion for the through traffic on main routes in a number of States, and as others come into operation they also will offer facilities superior to those now existing, for drivers who wish to pay the tolls. Diversion of traffic to toll roads from existing routes reduces traffic on those routes and usually relieves the pressure for their immediate improvement. To this extent, the toll roads are distinctly beneficial to the Federal-aid program. With the steady increases in traffic, however, the need for improvement of the existing facilities in many cases soon recurs.
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.
Duplication of facilities
By their nature, toll roads require that interchanges providing access and egress be placed only at infrequent intervals. 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.
