Toll roads again eyed for Tennessee; Bredesen cool to the idea

By Richard Locker, Commercial Appeal
December 5, 2006

NASHVILLE -- Are toll booths over the horizon for Tennessee motorists?

The concept, which surfaces occasionally as a means of paying for new highway construction, arose again Monday during state budget hearings for the state Department of Transportation. Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely said it's one option "that's on the table and being talked about" as an alternative to a gasoline tax increase -- but not immediately.

He said tolls could speed up construction of projects like Interstate 69 north of Memphis, which is still on the drawing board.

Nicely told Gov. Phil Bredesen that TDOT "had some inquiries" about tolling sections of I-69 and a new I-75 bypass around Knoxville. Bredesen and his top finance aides are conducting the hearings as they draft an overall state budget proposal for fiscal year 2007-08 for presentation to the state legislature in February.

Bredesen was cold on the idea. "The state's perfectly capable of collecting tolls if that's what it came to. I just don't know where it (a toll road) would go. When it comes to where you would put a road in Tennessee that somebody would pay to drive on (when) they couldn't just as easily take a road alongside it somewhere, it's not obvious where that is.

"I'm open to any thoughts about how you might better finance transportation projects but I certainly don't have any in mind," the governor said.

State Rep. Phillip Pinion, D-Union City, said last month that as chairman of the House Transportation Committee he plans to file a bill creating the legal authority for toll roads in Tennessee. The state established a Tennessee Tollway Authority in the 1980s to examine toll roads but the idea never caught on and the statute that created it was abolished a few years ago.

But Sen. Mark Norris, R-Collierville, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said toll roads "need to be taken off the table" until an estimated $217 million in fuel-tax revenue that has been diverted into non-transportation uses since 2002 has been "restored and repaid."

The diversion of fuel tax proceeds from the state's transportation fund to the general fund for other programs and services began during the budget crunch in former governor Don Sundquist's final term. "Folks are tired of talking about new fees and taxes when the funds we already have are not being used for transportation," Norris said Monday.

The governor said Monday that he will end the diversion in the 2007-08 budget that he will propose in two months. He has cut the annual diversion from the $65 million in 2002 to $32 million this year.