Gov. Bob McDonnell is asking the federal government to allow tolls on Interstate 95 at Virginia’s southern border, hoping to raise as much as $60 million a year for lagging road maintenance.
McDonnell wants to install automated tolls for motorists entering and leaving North Carolina on the well-traveled highway, charging $1 or $2 per axle. The initiative was a central plank of the Republican’s transportation plan during the 2009 election.
If the federal government grants permission for the tolls, Virginia could divert federal gas tax funds from the state’s busiest interstate to other repairs and upgrades.
The Federal Highway Administration already has backed tolls on Interstate 81 in Virginia under a pilot program. Now, McDonnell is asking to switch that approval to I-95.
Tolling, while absent from Interstate 95, has been a long-time revenue generator on Virginia roads. Key examples include:
¥ Dulles Toll Road ¥ Dulles Greenway ¥ Pocahontas Parkway ¥ Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
“We think we can make a very good case for why I-95 is the best opportunity to utilize the revenue generated by tolling,” Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton told the Washington Examiner Monday.
The McDonnell administration is in discussions with the federal highway agency staff, which so far has been “noncommittal” on the proposal, Connaughton said.
Virginia’s highway planning panel has cut billions of dollars from its six-year plan to account for stagnant revenues. And an expanding maintenance deficit is threatening to eclipse new construction. Large parts of Interstate 95 have “deficient pavements and structures,” which contribute to the highway’s high accident rate, McDonnell wrote in a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for permission to establish tolling. He estimated the plan would bring in between $30 million and $60 million a year, all of which must be used on the highway. McDonnell has refused to raise taxes to raise funds for roads and rail needs, instead proposing a patchwork of tolling, public-private partnerships, privatization and oil and gas drilling revenues. He is also pushing a plan to sell off the state’s more than 330 liquor stores and pump the proceeds into transportation. A Federal Highway Administration spokeswoman declined to comment on the toll application’s status.
