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Arizona Toll Roads?

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Alex:
Arizona making way for creation of private toll roads


--- Quote ---The Federal Highway Administration listed five candidates for possible toll roads in central Arizona. All involve bypasses around Phoenix from Interstate 10 to the West Valley and East Valley, as well as highways that connect to them.

Toll roads work best when they parallel a congested route and expect lots of traffic, said Eric Anderson, transportation director for the Maricopa Association of Governments. He highlighted one of the five listed routes as suitable: Arizona 801, which would parallel I-10 and connect the proposed South Mountain Freeway with Arizona 85 in Buckeye.
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Truvelo:
I just hope it's more successful than a similar project which opened here in the UK in 2003 which involved building a new freeway to bypass a congested freeway which ran through the urban area. Unfortunately the high tolls put people off and traffic congestion on the old (free) route continues to plague the area. To use the 27 mile road one way during the week is roughly $7.60 so someone making a return journey will pay over $15.

I've only driven through Phoenix during one week last February and the section of I-10 near Sky Harbor was slow running when I used it but away from the central area it flowed fine so perhaps an extension of Loop 101 and Loop 202 around the southwest of Phoenix could be the answer rather than a toll road which could potentially put some people off using it if the tolls are expensive.

njroadhorse:

--- Quote from: Truvelo on October 18, 2009, 01:25:51 PM ---I just hope it's more successful than a similar project which opened here in the UK in 2003 which involved building a new freeway to bypass a congested freeway which ran through the urban area. Unfortunately the high tolls put people off and traffic congestion on the old (free) route continues to plague the area. To use the 27 mile road one way during the week is roughly $7.60 so someone making a return journey will pay over $15.

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I'm assuming you're talking about the M6 Toll, that monstrosity.

My take on these is if they are going to toll a huge bypass of Phoenix and I-10, the tolls come in handy to finance an enormous highway through the desert that they know they can build.  Public money only goes so far on most of these projects, and the amount of traffic that's currently on I-10 in the Phoenix area merits a large expensive road like what AZ 801 could be.

Chris:
Toll roads are only feasible if there are no alternates, or if tolls are low enough. In case of the M6 Toll, the tolls are obviously too high. They need to do some serious cost-benefit surveys based on realism.

I assume they want to build a toll road south of Phoenix to bypass the downtown area? The main problem is traffic volumes are probably low, even if it was untolled and no new sprawl would appear.

Traffic volumes on I-10 west of Phoenix are only around 20,000 AADT. If 50% of that traffic has a destination or origin in the Phoenix area, that leaves only 10,000 AADT potential traffic for a tolled bypass. Given the resistance of the American public and truckers to toll roads, I'm afraid traffic volumes would be way to low. :no:

mightyace:

--- Quote from: AARoads on October 18, 2009, 12:56:29 PM ---
--- Quote ---Toll roads work best when they parallel a congested route and expect lots of traffic, said Eric Anderson, transportation director for the Maricopa Association of Governments. He highlighted one of the five listed routes as suitable: Arizona 801, which would parallel I-10 and connect the proposed South Mountain Freeway with Arizona 85 in Buckeye.
--- End quote ---

--- End quote ---

I think Chris is right and this guy is wrong.  Tolls work best when there is no free alternative or the free alternative is much less desirable for one reason or another.  That's why the Pennsylvania Turnpike works and why they keep trying to toll I-80.  The I-80 alignment in PA does not really parallel any other route for any significant distance.

The toll road paralleling I-10 would probably be lightly traveled unless the tolls are real low and I-10 is really, really busy.

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