Direct Tolling, on Federal Highway, will allow State and Local governments, the funding to reconstruct, expand highway, and road projects.

Mixed reaction to leaked infrastructure plan

A leaked six-page memo that purportedly outlines some of the key principles of the Trump administration's long-awaited infrastructure plan is drawing fire from several corners of the trucking industry - especially regarding plans to allow states to broaden interstate tolling efforts and commercialize rest stops.

 From article, (A leaked six-page memo that purportedly outlines some of the key principles of the Trump administration’s long-awaited infrastructure plan is drawing fire from several corners of the trucking industry – especially regarding plans to allow states to broaden interstate tolling efforts and commercialize rest stops.

“Our primary concern is that the memo talks about giving states the ‘flexibility’ to toll existing interstates and ‘reconcile the grandfathered restrictions on the use of highway toll revenues with current law.’ We’re gearing up for a big fight over that,” Stephanie Kane, spokesperson for the Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates, told Fleet Owner.

Related: ATRI: Fuel tax best method for highway funding

She added that one of her group’s biggest concerns is that the broader use of tolls will shift highway traffic – especially truck traffic – to secondary roads, creating more congestion and potential freight delivery delays.

“We feel tolls are a form of underhanded taxation [and this plan] translates to a complete reversal of the current federal ban on tolling existing interstates,” she added. “Tolls are simply a new tax; they are wildly inefficient, sacrificing money that could go toward construction instead going to corporate profits and administrative costs. In addition to the diversion onto secondary roads, which causes congestion and public safety issues, tolls will do unimaginable harm to businesses, as shipping and manufacturing prices skyrocket to account for these new costs.”

The truck stop and travel plaza trade group NATSO is also unhappy with some of the Trump administration’s tolling proposal as well as other aspects of its “privatization” focus on infrastructure funding.

Other key aspects of the Trump administration’s infrastructure memo include:

• Encourage more private and local investment in infrastructure projects through the broader use of federal grants, including the broader use of “advance refunding bonds” to refinance private activity bonds.
• Focus 25% of federal infrastructure appropriations on investment in rural areas.
• Dedicate 10% to a “Transformative Projects Program” under the Commerce Department’s control that would provide “federal funding and technical assistance to projects that cannot obtain private funding.
• Devote 7% of appropriations to expanding federal lending programs to grow investments, with another 5% establishing a “revolving fund” to finance the acquisition of property for infrastructure projects.)

Me, "First, Truckers should pay tolls on Federal highways because its their trucks that damage it, needing it to be rebuilt. The money has to come from somewhere. With semi-trucks going electric, the gas tax won't be enough to fund reconstruction. 

Second, as we have seen in NJ,  If truckers try to avoid these tolled highways, local municipalities can institute bans on using their local roads as thruways, keeping truck traffic on the tolled Highway. 

"I think this is a very thought out plan. Tolling highways will lead to truckers, either, trying to reduce their costs by switching to more fuel efficient trucks, or electric trucks to cut out the gas tax, and will free up road traffic by making drivers only use it when they really need too. This will allow CO2 emissions to go down. Also, to cut down on truck shipping costs, more freight will be sent via rail or ship to ports closer to its intended delivery point. The needless long hauling of Truck Freight, on highways, would go down. 
There should be limits on how high a toll can be raised, so as not to over toll a road, but other than that highway tolling pays for direct, State, reconstruction and expansion of roads and highways. 
Car drivers would see an improvement too, because traffic would go down. As more people combine trips to reduce toll fees, and they would know that their tolls are going directly to their state or local government, to be used, on roads they use."