by Jon Styf
Tennessee’s Senate voted to approve Gov. Bill Lee’s Transportation Modernization Act late Monday with a 26-5 vote.
The bill would put $3.3 billion into the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s Transportation Modernization Fund and send it in equal portions to the state’s three Grand Divisions for road work, which the state says there is a $26 billion backlog that needs to be completed.
“I feel like this will be a transformational change,” State Sen. Becky Massey, R-Knoxville. “… this bill makes a big effort in addressing our road needs.”
The companion House Bill 321 is scheduled to be heard in the Finance, Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.
A large priority of Senate Bill 273 is to begin having private companies build toll lanes in the state. The lanes would be additional lanes built after a deal is made between the state and the entity.
Massey has given an example of a deal where the private company would pay for 80% of the work and the state would fund 20 percent and then the private company would earn back its spending through tolls on the additional lanes, which Massey said could relieve congestion in both the current lanes and the toll lanes.
The lanes would be leased to companies but the state would maintain ownership of the road. The bill excludes businesses from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from receiving contracts through the program.
TDOT usually receives $500 million in annual construction funding for the backlog on infrastructure needs and the bill is intended to speed up that work by spending the state’s funding on more rural roadways and using more private funding for the state’s main highways through toll lanes.
The bill also will increase registration fees for electric vehicles, starting at $200 next year and then rising to $274 before the increases are tied to the consumer price index with a 3 percent annual cap starting in 2027. Hybrid vehicles will begin at $100 and rise in cost starting in 2027.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter at The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “Tacoma Toll Booth” by Washington Dept of Transportation CC2.0.
Motor fuel/transportation tax revenue was robbed for years in TN for other “reasons” rather than being appropriated for the transportation budget. Republicans raised the motor fuel taxes in 2019 to fund a huge “backlog of approved projects that we don’t have funding for”. Four years later, the backlog still exists, all the projects are more expensive because they gave money away to Google, Facebook, Amazon, Ford, Titans stadium #2 instead of maintaining the roads and building expansions for all those “created jobs”. Now, the solution is steal public property to create a toll road because they don’t have funding. Look at the state budget for transportation. Follow the $. Most people don’t realize the state budget has increased 50% in ten years. Tax and Spend Republican Supermajority. Just not spending it on needed road projects.
This move is fraught with opportunities for abuse. If private folks want to build toll roads then make them acquire property themselves rather than giving them exclusives right to the public land on which our highways are constructed.
Who decides when and what maintenance will be performed on these toll roads. You think that there might be a chance for corruption and crony politics with that issue. Surely not (wink. wink.)
I have been personally exposed to this type of traffic “improvement”. Joe average who cannot pay an expensive toll every morning and night sits in even more congestion while his wealthy neighbor zips by at 70. But I have NEVER ever seen these toll lanes filled anywhere near capacity. But they are permanently entrenched thereby preventing any future expansion of “free” lanes. Folks. You are being sold a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And Lee and his cronies will be counting their money while we are paying the bills.
How about some open studies for 3-4 years to bring out valid opposition rather than ramrodding this garbage through in less than 6 months? We all know the reason. It would not survive the light of truth.
Disgusting.
I lived in California where they did this and it was disastrous. It increased everyone’s commute times by over an hour and a half because of the traffic jam caused by getting in and out of the toll lanes. The commute was much faster for everyone before they added the toll lanes.
I, like many, do not like toll roads. In a way it is similar to yet another tax. Having said that, the most appropriate tax is a usury tax wherein those who use the service, the road, pay for it. It is fair. The challenge will be to earmark or dedicate the monies so they are not transferred to other programs. In California taxes were frequently added to gasoline with the promise they would go toward road repair and infrastructure maintenance. Two problems came to fore front; first, electric vehicles who used the road then paid nothing for road service. Second, the dedicated funds were re-appropriated and shifted to entitlement programs such as public assistance.