Infrastructure Advocate Speaks Out Against Toll Roads

The Louisiana Good Roads Association is asking the state to steer clear of toll roads as the legislature considers how to raise more funds to build a series of much needed bridges. President Kenneth Perret says toll roads have generated a lot of money in places like Houston, but only because that city has a heavy population density.

“They have as much population in the city as they have in the state. They have tremendous volume of traffic all of the time.”

He says unlike in Florida and Texas, Louisiana generally only has rush hour periods of intense traffic volume.

Perret says Louisiana’s traffic congestion problems are not because we have an abnormally high volume of traffic, one that could be effectively toll taxed, but because the roads and bridges that we do have were only designed to last for twenty years…

“It was proper for the time that it was built, but now, fifty years later, the traffic has just increased more than it was designed for originally.”

While he hopes the state does not chose to fund it’s infrastructure needs with toll taxes only, Perret says they do have their place in very specific situations, like high traffic bridges.

“They can be used to supplement, but it has to be very specific types of projects where there is a big volume, and there is a choke point.”

This was in response to those who have called for toll roads instead of a proposed gas tax bill.