DOT Proposal Includes Rest Area Commercialization and
Promotes Tolling
U.S. Department of
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters released the proposal,
entitled Refocus, Reform, Renew: A New
Transportation Approach for America, ahead of next year’s
scheduled reauthorization of the 2005 highway funding bill,
SAFETEA-LU.
Commercialization
If passed, the proposal
would suffocate existing interstate businesses in favor of just one
business hand-picked by the state.
"It is astonishing that the
administration continues to back a proposal that would have such
detrimental effects on drivers, highway-based businesses and local
communities," said Lisa Mullings, President and CEO of NATSO,
representing travel plazas and truckstops.
This proposal threatens
many interstate-based businesses that depend on the free movement of
interstate traffic, not to mention their employees and the local
governments which need taxes generated from these businesses. The reason
is simple and undeniable: it is virtually impossible for a business at
the interchange to compete with a state-sanctioned business located
directly on the shoulder of the road.
Commercialization of
interstate rest areas will not result in the sale of any additional
hamburgers or increase the number of gallons of fuel
purchased. “It will merely shift the point of sale away
from America’s rural communities where businesses have been
established over the last 50 years, to the one new entity able to
achieve market dominance overnight by virtue of their convenient
location on the shoulder of the highway,” Mullings
said.
In its proposal, the DOT
acknowledges that current law prohibits commercialization because it
would give an “unfair advantage to the businesses located directly
on the interstate over those that are located at an exit off the
interstate.” However, the administration has disregarded the
devastating effects that unfair advantage would have on communities and
instead focused on the quick capital the projects could generate for the
state.
While the state might make more
money, the tax base of local governments would shrink. By 2010,
interchange businesses will contribute an estimated $1.8 billion-plus in
property taxes to local governments annually, funds that are used for
education and police and fire protection.
Under the guise of improving
public safety, the proposal would direct participating states to
incorporate improvements and expansion of truck parking facilities at
the newly privatized rest areas. However, commercialization would
actually reduce the overall number of spaces available for heavy
trucks.
Mullings said,
“Truckstops and travel plazas provide 90 percent of this
nation’s truck parking. There is no doubt that we will see a
severe truck parking shortage if these businesses are forced to close
their doors.”
Tolling
In addition to promoting commercialization, the DOT proposal strongly
supports the use of tolling and congestion pricing by state governments
to fund highway programs. The proposal would remove the general
prohibition of tolls and allow states to implement tolling mechanisms on
federal highways, with minor restrictions. The document also
favors the implementation of congestion pricing to mitigate traffic, and
in some cases would prioritize federal grants to states that adopt such
pricing schemes. In its submission, the Department also strongly
criticizes the gasoline tax as a sustainable method of financing for the
Highway Trust Fund.
NATSO strongly opposes
the tolling of the nation’s interstates. “Tolls represent a system of double taxation for the
commercial trucking industry, which already pays 40 percent of all
highway user fees,” Mullings said. In addition, tolls divert
traffic onto secondary roads that are not equipped to handle this
traffic, resulting in higher accident rates and damage to these
secondary roads.
The resulting traffic diversion
would also reduce the customer base of the interstate-based businesses
that rely on professional drivers and the motoring public. Mullings
said, “Travel centers, truckstops, restaurants, gasoline stations,
convenience stores and lodging establishments have invested millions to
build facilities and depend on the free movement of
traffic.”
She continued, “By the
year 2010, small business owners who provide services to highway users
along the interstate are expected to employ over two million Americans
and generate nearly $200 billion in sales annually. We want to ensure
the interests of business owners along the highways are taken into
consideration.”
With a new Administration
taking office in January, Congress is not expected to take any action on
the DOT proposal, although it may serve as an initial starting point
over debate of the next surface transportation reauthorization
legislation.
Already, the proposal has
received a lukewarm response on Capitol Hill, with House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) stating
the document “offers nothing to ensure a sustainable, long-term,
intermodal, national transportation system.” In a written release,
Oberstar also said, “The Administration’s plan, presented
during its waning months, calls to mind the concept of Mortmain, the
dead hand, reaching out from the past to affect the
future.”
Over 70,000 businesses
have sprung up at interchanges across America,
and NATSO will continue its ongoing fight against commercialization to
ensure those businesses are able to continue serving their communities
and the nation’s drivers.
For more information,
contact Stephen
Beaulieu.
Click here to read the
full DOT proposal.
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