Page:Progress and Feasibility of Toll Roads and Their Relation to the Federal Aid Program.pdf/23

Rh Past experience as a guide

Because of variations in the methods of financing the present toll roads and the many special conditions that surround their operation, it is apparent that prospects for further toll financing cannot be determined simply by projecting past experience. Each proposal requires a detailed study of its financial feasibility and of the most effective method of collection of the essential revenue.

There has emerged from the experience to date, however, a rather standardized pattern of study of feasibility and a good knowledge of many of the factors essential in estimating feasibility. Estimates of the proportion of traffic that may be expected to be attracted to roads of modern design, the amount of revenue that may be expected from concessions for the sale of gasoline and food, and factors of safety that investment bankers regard as necessary before subscribing to proposed bond issues may now be made on the basis of actual experience on a number of toll roads operating under a variety of conditions.

One of the obvious conclusions from the experience of toll-road operation and studies of feasibility and cost that have been made is that the situation is never static. Conclusions reached today may have to be altered within a year as new developments appear. It is almost axiomatic, however, that with the steady increase in traffic volumes everywhere in the country and with traffic needs increasing so much faster than the facilities provided for its movement, financing through revenue bonds will become increasingly attractive unless provision of public funds is substantially increased. It appears, however, that even though the general level of attractiveness of revenue-bond financing will vary with the economic situation and with the amount of construction with public funds, the order of feasibility of individual routes relative to one another does not change materially.

As indication of the absence of change in relative feasibility of different routes, it is of interest to compare the location of toll roads now operating or under construction with the sections found to be the most likely to be self-liquidating in the 1938 study of the Bureau of Public Roads. The two maps in figure 2 show this comparison. The upper map shows the arterial toll roads now in operation or under construction. It includes a number of roads that were not considered in the 1938 study because they are not on one of the six routes to which that study was limited. The lower map shows the 2,977 miles of highway portrayed in plate 15 of the report Toll Roads and Free Roads (p. 28) as highest in order of estimated feasibility. A number of these routes probably will not be built as toll roads because existing or planned free routes will meet traffic needs.

The similarity of these maps is striking. The resemblance would be still closer, however, if from the upper map were removed the toll roads that do not lie along the routes selected for the 1938 study, and if from the lower map were eliminated the routes on the west coast, most of which probably will not be built as toll roads because of the adequacy of existing or planned free roads.

The conclusion is obvious that the greatly increased traffic pressures, caused by the tremendous upsurge in traffic and the lag in