For three hours Monday, members of the West Virginia state Parkways Authority hashed out details for the sale of more than $300 million of turnpike bonds, a plan the authority is expected to formally approve on Thursday.
That number is considerably less than the $500 million of turnpike toll bonds that state lawmakers thought would be sold when they passed a bill in 2017 to continue tolls on the Turnpike for another 30 years.
However, Parkways General Manager Greg Barr said the hope is that the doubling of toll rates on the Turnpike will produce more money than projected in the intentionally conservative estimates in a toll revenue study by CDM Smith Inc. For passenger vehicles, tolls will increase from $2 to $4 per toll barrier, without E-ZPass discounts.
Barr said he believes the toll revenue estimates leaned on the side of caution in overestimating the amount of commercial traffic that will divert to Interstates 75 or 81 — the two closest north-south interstates — to avoid higher tolls on the Turnpike.
"That gives us a couple of years to prove that this is kind of a uncommon situation," Barr said of traffic that gets funneled onto the Turnpike from interstates 77, 79 and 64. "It's going to be tougher to divert, even though it's built into their projections."
Also cutting into anticipated revenue is Gov. Jim Justice's mandate that Parkways provide deeply discounted E-ZPass transponders for unlimited use of the Turnpike for passenger vehicles.
Under the proposal, Parkways will offer a three-year unlimited use E-ZPass for $24, a pass that will increase to $25 a year beginning in 2022.
Currently, an E-ZPass providing unlimited passage through the Turnpike's three toll barriers runs $285 a year, and that price is prior to the doubling of Turnpike toll rates.
"That's a pretty hard deal to be upset about," Barr said. He noted that much of the discussion at four public hearings in counties served by the Turnpike region dealt with the new discount plan.
He said plans are to notify current E-ZPass users that they will be automatically switched to the new unlimited use plan, unless they opt out.
"We don't want any existing customers saying, 'Why wasn't I given an opportunity to join the new program?'" Barr said.
One complication with the new plan discussed Monday is that, while current E-ZPass transponders can be moved from vehicle to vehicle, the unlimited-use discount E-ZPass will be specifically assigned to one vehicle.
"The ability to switch among vehicles costs you a lot more lost revenue," Barr said.
The change means that multi-car households that had shared a single E-ZPass transponder will need to order E-ZPass transponders for each vehicle.
One concern is that when people put their cars in the shop for repairs, they frequently move their E-ZPass transponders to their rental cars or loaners — something that will not be permitted on the unlimited use E-ZPass.
Also, while the discounted E-ZPass will provide unlimited free use of the Turnpike, drivers will need to keep a prepaid balance on their accounts if they want to use their E-ZPass transponders on out-of-state toll roads.
Authority member Alisha Maddox suggested that Parkways may want to include an explanatory publication with each new transponder, spelling out terms and conditions, and answering frequently asked questions about the new plan.
"There are a lot of caveats to using this. It's not just, 'Hey, I've got this, I'm good to go,'" she said.
Another common topic at the public hearings, Barr said, were requests to exempt various classes of vehicles from paying tolls, including school buses, emergency vehicles and vehicles driven by disabled veterans.
Besides further cutting into toll revenue, Barr said granting exemptions to certain classes of vehicles or charitable organizations would open a Pandora's box, leading other groups and organizations to demand toll exemptions.
"Everybody's wanting more discounts, more free travel," he said. "This single-fee plan is such a tremendous break, that when we're doing something this major, it's hard to do more."
Barr noted that emergency vehicles are now exempted from tolls if they are on active calls. Also, authority member Bill Seaver suggested the Legislature should come up with a fund to reimburse school systems for school bus tolls.
Seaver, meanwhile, noted that the outcry to the planned toll increases from southern West Virginia legislators has been relatively mild, compared to the reaction to the last round of proposed toll hikes in 2005, which were eventually enacted in 2009, raising the toll from $1.25 to $2.
"The legislators pounded on us," he said of proposed bills to roll back those increases and to eliminate the authority outright. "We were the biggest traitors since [Rich] Rodriguez went to Michigan, but it turned out everything worked tremendously well."
At Thursday's meeting, the Parkways Authority will consider a bond resolution authorizing the sale of about $172 million in bonds in July or August, followed by a second bond issue estimated at $139 million within two years.
Other topics of discussion during the work session Monday:
- Plans are to retain current E-ZPass discounts for commercial vehicles under the new bond issue. Currently, commercial vehicles with Parkways-issued E-ZPass transponders receive a 20 percent discount, while transponders issued by other states register a 13 percent discount.
- Officials downplayed any likelihood the toll increases will be challenged in court by the commercial trucking industry, citing recent U.S. circuit court rulings rejecting industry challenges to toll increases in New York and Pennsylvania.
- Transportation Secretary Tom Smith said the fact that revenue from the Turnpike bonds is committed to specific capital improvement projects — including repaving and bridge deck replacements — strengthens the state's position. "I call them "meat-and-potato" projects that the trucking companies will directly benefit from," he said.
- Authority members were asked to consider "rounding down" proposed toll increases of $0.80 for passenger vehicles and $1.60 for commercial vehicles at the North Beckley exit to more "quarter-friendly" 75 cents and $1.50 tolls for cash payments, to avoid backups at the toll booth while drivers inevitably hunt for change.
