Here is another article about the toll hike approval, which includes a few notes on the SR 414 extension and the Wekiva Parkway:
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25-cent expressway toll hike approved, will start April 5
Plazas, ramps to charge 25 cents more April 5 -- other boosts due in 2012
Dan Tracy | Sentinel Staff Writer
February 27, 2009
Rejecting the complaints and occasional catcalls of dozens of disgruntled motorists, the directors of Greater Orlando's road-building agency unanimously decided to raise tolls by at least 25 cents Thursday.
The rate increase will take effect April 5 at 14 main toll plazas and most exit and entrance ramps on the nearly 105-mile system.
An additional increase of at least 9percent is planned in 2012, based on rises in the Consumer Price Index during the next three years. Subsequent cost-of-living increases would kick in every five years.
The authority chairman, Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty, defended the raise by saying it would improve the flagging economy by creating jobs and improving the region's road network.
"There's a very big economic impact," he said.
But 28 people asked the directors not to raise tolls, arguing that people are too distressed by the failing economy to pay more to ride on the authority's roads. Board members, the critics charged, are poor stewards of the toll money.
"Mismanagement is the problem here, not lack of revenue," said Michael Walzak of Orlando.
Board member Tanya Juarez, who voted for the increase that passed 4-0, agreed the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority needs to be more frugal, suggesting weeklong furloughs for the authority's 50 employees might be a good starting point.
"We must exhaust all cost-cutting measures," Juarez said.
That comment offered little comfort to Madonna Patrick, who lives in west Orange County. She said her son spends $152.75 a month on tolls driving to and from his home, job and school at the University of Central Florida.
The increase, she said, will bump his bill to $210.75.
"There's no way to get to UCF if you don't have the toll roads, unless you want to take all day," Patrick said.
UCF President John Hitt was one of seven who spoke in favor of the increase.
"We need to maintain and expand our road network," he said. "We need to raise rates if that's what it takes."
The toll increase, in fact, is as much about the future as it is about replacing money lost to fewer toll payers.
Without a boost, authority officials say, they cannot build any new roads, potentially leaving the beltway around greater Orlando incomplete and eliminating improvements and expansions to the existing system, which includes state roads 408, 417, 429 and parts of 414 and 528.
The first 25-cent bump would raise an additional $47million, according to revenue projections compiled by an authority consultant. That increase would come despite an anticipated traffic drop of as much as 10 percent caused by motorists unwilling to pay the higher tolls.
The initial cost-of-living increase — its first full year coming in 2013 — would raise another $67million.
That double infusion of money would restart authority construction projects, with some work possibly beginning at the end of the year.
Authority managers say they could borrow as much as $648 million in coming months, ultimately creating as many as 18,000 construction and related jobs.
The work would include:
•Extending the John Land Apopka Expressway, also known as S.R. 414, west to near Plymouth-Sorrento Road, in preparation for the Wekiva Parkway. Construction of that 25-mile toll road, linking S.R. 414 to Interstate 4 in Seminole County, could begin in 2014.
•Widening S.R. 408 near S.R. 417 and improving the interchange between the two roads.
Authority director Mike Snyder also said that without an increase, toll income could drop below what the agency needs to pay off $2.1billion in bond debt. That could trigger a takeover of operations by the bondholders, though he could not cite an agency to which that has happened.
Cash customers likely would pay 25 cents more for every increase, because the agency says it is not cost-effective to collect small change.
But motorists with E-Pass, the electronic device that automatically debits a prepaid account, would be charged the actual cost-of-living increase, even if it is only a few cents.
The authority last raised rates in 1990 and lowered them at two plazas in 1992.
This is the second time in less than three years that the agency said it would raise tolls. Authority officials backed off in 2006, when a scandal broke about how the agency spent its money. That prompted the resignation of two directors, including board Chairman Allan Keen.
Triggering the backlash was the disclosure that a consultant for the agency had paid a company controlled by anti-tax activist Doug Guetzloe $107,500 to research why people dislike paying tolls.
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Topic: Florida (Read 1294160 times)