Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates Urges Repeal of ISRRPP Tolling Pilot

As the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the House of Representatives prepares to markup their multi-year highway funding bill today, the Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates (ATFI) is throwing its weight behind measures that would protect interstates from new tolls.

The anti-tolling group has sent a letter to the Committee thanking them for listening to their constituents’ vocal opposition and staving off attempts by tolling lobbyists to expand the Interstate System Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot Program (ISRRPP).

Instead, the group urged the ISRRPP’s repeal.

The bill draft, released on Friday, October 16th, changes the ISRRPP in two ways. If passed, it would require states to have enabling legislation before the pilot is approved, and it imposes a 3-year deadline for approval before the slot can be transferred to another state.

USDOT may extend that deadline for 1 more year if the state has made substantial progress. The states currently holding the slots, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia, have 1 year to receive approval, or USDOT may extend conditional approval by 1 year if substantial progress has been made.

Unlike the Senate’s DRIVE Act put forward in July, the House’s bill draft does not include language that would allow the diversion of funds collected through tolls for purposes other than improvements to that road. Because tolls are generally upheld as a ‘user fee’ for the roads traveled, ATFI holds that diverting these funds away from infrastructure improvements is a violation of the public trust.

ATFI spokesperson Stephanie Kane told Fleet News Daily that the coalition supports real transportation solutions, stating that “The ISRRPP has provided 17 years’ worth of evidence that tolling existing interstates is not a viable transportation funding method, and this distraction should be eliminated from the national discussion.”

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