It tolls for no one

State finds toll road for I-49 section not worth it

Yet another tolling study has offered up disappointing results. This time, the study looked at tolls as a means to build, maintain and operate a 13.7-mile section of Interstate 49 south from Alma to Barling in western Arkansas.

It is a short stretch of road but a costly one, made more expensive because it would include a new bridge over the Arkansas River.

Project cost is estimated at $776 million. Building it as a four-lane toll road would bump the cost to $787 million. Another $118 million would be needed to operate and maintain it as a toll road. And another $141 million should be set aside for major maintenance and reconstruction, according to the estimates.

Contrast that with the potential revenue from tolls, calculated at an optimum rate of 15 cents per mile, or $2 for the length of this section. Tolls would generate an estimated $243 million annually, or nothing close to enough to make tolling worthwhile.

The numbers just don’t work for the Arkansas Department of Transportation, which doesn’t have the money in hand or on the horizon to build the road.

If the roadway gets built anytime soon, it will apparently have to be done on a pay-as-you-go basis, pieced together bit by bit. Four lanes here, two lanes there, whatever can be built with however much money the state can put together.

As Scott Bennett, department director, reminded the Arkansas Highway Commission, Arkansas has been through more than 50 tolling studies in the last 50 years. None have led to tolling.

Eventually, this long-term project, or something close to it, will get built. This section is part of the high-priority corridor designated by Congress to connect Kansas City, Mo., to south Louisiana.

I-49, which is complete between Bentonville and Alma and between Texarkana and the Louisiana border, is needed to move people and goods north and south through the state.

It will happen, but when?

That’s a question a lot of people with highway needs are asking —not just about this critical connector but also about other projects.

It is why Arkansans can expect highway funding to be on the state Legislature’s agenda again next year.

There is little clue yet just what form the proposal might take, but Gov. Asa Hutchinson, fresh off re-election, was talking highways recently to the Good Roads Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for highway funding in the state.

The governor said a new highway funding plan is a priority for the upcoming regular legislative session, which begins in January.

He doesn’t expect it to take shape early and said a plan will need consensus among lawmakers and industry groups as well as public support.

“The Legislature,” he said, “has got to figure out the exact way to fund the highway program.”

Others suggest the governor’s making highway funding a priority is key to getting any funding plan through the Legislature.

Hutchinson’s early budget recommendations emphasize raising minimum salaries for public school teachers and continued cuts in state income taxes.

Like other governors before him, Hutchinson continues to resist tapping into state general revenue for highways.

It is a prudent position to take, despite repeated pressure from highway advocates to redirect money that traditionally has paid for other state needs from schools to prisons to Medicaid and much more.

Still, highway officials say the state needs $478 million a year in additional funding just to meet current maintenance and improvement needs.

Hutchinson has said a plan might include extending an existing half-cent sales tax for highways. Approved by voters in 2012, the tax will expire in 2023.

Right now, that’s about the only idea on the table. Expect more as the session moves along. That search for consensus on highway funding will get serious.

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