A “toll” in the purest sense is a user fee; and, in most cases, is collected to recover the cost of bonds sold to finance a specific roadway or bridge. Unlike taxes, paid whether one uses the facility or not; when a facility is funded by tolls, if you don’t use the facility, you don’t pay for it. The concept is simple, straightforward, easy to understand and, arguably, one of the fairest approaches to infrastructure financing . However, the word “toll” has developed a negative connotation in the U.S.

A rebranding effort on the word “toll” similar to that which the food industry has successfully completed with  “prunes” is thus warranted.

To those who might suggest that the toll industry is too disparate to accomplish this, the roadway safety industry has recently, successfully, rebranded the term “accident” with “crash”, since most incidents are preventable. The questions, thus, becomes:

            1) What term (or terms) should be used for rebranding?

One source of inspiration for such a rebranding effort can be found in the cable TV industry. Most of us pay a user fee for cable TV and internet services, including a fee for basic monthly service, with up-charges for premium TV, internet access and special programming. However, these very successful companies never use the term “toll” or “user fee”. They give each basic programming package a unique name, like Xfinity®, U-verse and Star-TV,  and offer premium services by bundling commonly desired programming and services, or by providing programming On Demand™.

            2) How do we make the rebranding effort successful?

An open discussion is welcome.

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* Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

© 2013 The eTrans Group, Inc.

Image courtesy of SXC.hu and HAAP Media

Most Americans feel that their roads are already paid for through motor fuel taxes. You hear it all the time:

“Fuel taxes are already sky high.” “What does the Government do with our gas tax?”

But building and maintaining roads is expensive.

The Federal Excise Tax on gasoline has not changed for 20 years. Some state fuel taxes are indexed to inflation; but, many are not – and most of those have also not been raised for years. And, even though fuel consumption rates are going down, increasing fuel taxes is not a viable option today.

So what can we do?

We have two basic options:

1) Increase federal involvement or

2) Increase user fees.

Continued federal involvement can restrict the benefits of other options. Federal tax exemptions can cloud the benefits of projects financed by state and local governments. Federal subsidies open up funding to pork barrel politics, instead of making improvements where they are most warranted. And Federal regulations, such as prohibitions of tolls on Interstate Highways, can eliminate viable options.

Allowing state and local governments to apply user-fees to existing Interstate Highways where we need to increase capacity or do major repairs would go a long way toward fixing the funding problem. It also makes sense.

However, public acceptance of this approach will require an honest, national dialogue of the facts. A discussion on alternative  revenue sources and shortfalls in available funding is required. The benefits of road user fees, including the fact that they allow us to make improvements now, versus 20 years from now, is also important.

We may find that most people are not against user fees, just wasteful spending.

Re-instating IBTTA‘s ‘There are no Free Roads™’ campaign would be a great start at this public information effort.

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First published at www.tollingtheline.blogspot.com September 3, 2013, revised on republication.

© 2013 The eTrans Group, Inc.