In 2007, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a groundbreaking plan to highlight the need to reconstruct and expand six critical interstates. Designated “Corridors of the Future,” Interstates 5, 10, 15, 69, 70 and 95 were selected as part of the U.S. DOT’s initiative for reducing gridlock on America’s transportation network because they carry 22.7 percent of the nation’s daily interstate travel.

Addressing these needs would significantly improve freight movement and dramatically increase overall system efficiency, but the U.S. DOT’s strategy lacks one critical element: funding. Renovating these 50-year-old corridors, so they continue to perform 50 years from now is a wildly expensive proposition that cannot be funded by traditional means.

Without funding alternatives, some DOTs would have to shelve all other projects.
Addressing Missouri’s stretch of I-70 alone would cost the state between $3 billion and $4 billion dollars. Funding the massive 251-mile endeavor with conventional mechanisms would require Missouri Department of Transportation to shelve every other transportation project on its docket for the better part of a decade — bridge repairs and potholes included — while local taxpayers reached into their pockets to subsidize the national traffic system. In essence, the U.S. DOT has presented a solution without specifying how DOTs will pay for it. And, a solution without funding is no solution at all.

The Corridors of the Future are unique and special routes that require a unique and special funding mechanism. Congress should take the lead and include a provision in the next transportation authorization bill that would give states the authority to toll these specific corridors if they so choose.

As it stands, asking cash-strapped DOTs to build these Corridors of the Future with traditional funding sources is like tying a prizefighter’s hands before he steps into the ring. Congress must expand the existing law. Current legislation prohibits tolling U.S. interstates with the exception of the Federal Highway Administration’s Interstate System Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot Program, which would allow three states to toll existing interstates in order to reconstruct them. This is too restrictive given the financial realities of building modern interstates.

Corridors of the Future provide a perfect test bed.
Some industry veterans predict tolling eventually will replace the gas tax as the primary funding source for maintaining and improving all U.S. interstates. But, Congress doesn’t make radical changes without fully understanding their implications. The Corridors of the Future provide an excellent test bed, giving Congress a larger, more accurate and geographically diverse sample size from which to base future toll decisions.

Tolling is not a panacea. It is, however, becoming one very real solution to funding and maintaining America’s overburdened and deteriorating roadways. Because it can be used as a tool to address crucial, high-profile problems and generate critically needed revenue, states charged with building our Corridors of the Future should be allowed to add tolling to their transportation funding toolboxes.

Pete Rahn is the national transportation practice leader of HNTB Corporation, an employee-owned infrastructure firm, serving federal, state, municipal, military and private clients.

HNTB expert contact information:

Pete Rahn
Leader National Transportation Practice
HNTB Corporation
(816) 527-2034
E-mail: prahn@hntb.com

CorridorsOfFuture_PRahn_2012.pdf