For Interstate 81, rails are out and tolls are in, reports Garren Shipley with the Northern Virginia Daily. Those are the two main points to emerge from the Final Environmental Impact Study for I-81, which will guide how the Virginia Department of Transportation approaches the highway in the years ahead.
On trains:
A “Steel Interstate” proposal put forward by Rail Solution, a Shenandoah Valley group lobbying for a greater emphasis on freight rail rather than road expansion, just won’t work, according to the report.
Supporters are correct when they argue that a substantial portion of long truck trips would take to the rails if the $3.5 billion-plan were implemented, according to the a section of the report dealing with freight diversion.
Of the 7.3 million 500-mile or greater truck trips forecast for I-81 in 2035, 16.6 percent, or about 1.2 million, would take the train instead. But the vast majority of trucks, 21 million, are on trips of less than 500 miles, according to the study, and would be much less likely to take the time to offload their cargo onto trains.
On tolls:
Tolls also will be a part of I-81’s future, according to the document. Federal officials say they want to go forward with plans to levy fees of anywhere from 7 cents to 14 cents per mile.
Significant numbers of trucks and passenger cars would try to duck the tolls by using U.S. 11, the report says, but there would be wildly different impacts up and down western Virginia, depending on the location and toll charged.
In Washington County, near Bristol, a low toll would put 420 more trucks on I-81 every day while having no impact on U.S. 11. But in Shenandoah and Frederick counties, a high toll on trucks only would take 3,400 off of I-81 and put 3,190 more onto U.S. 11.
Tolls on interstates are generally forbidden, under the theory that taxpayers already paid to build the highways through federal and state taxes on gasoline. But Congress has carved out two exceptions in recent years, one for a “congestion pricing” pilot program, the other for a “reconstruction” pilot program.
