EYE ON TRUCKING: Tale of two tolls: 1-cent increase helps send trucks back to Bellevue

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

2/2/2008

The following ran as Eye on Trucking in the Perspective Section of the Feb. 15-29, 2008, issue of The Trucker.

BELLEVUE, Ohio — As the old saying goes, they’re baaaack.

Or at least some of them are.

In doing research for the series of stories on the recently released study on tolls and the impact of those tolls on the possible diversion of big rigs to less safe roads (see Page 8), we called several cities located on alternate routes to the Ohio Turnpike.

As you remember, the Ohio Turnpike Commission raised rates on the Ohio Turnpike by as much as 82 percent in the 1990s, primarily to fund an additional lane.

Truckers left the Turnpike in droves.

Finally in 2004, then-Gov. Robert Taft slammed on the Jake brakes. As a result, the commission initiated a trial rate cut of drastic proportions and also raised the speed limit from 55 mph to 65 mph in an effort to get big rigs back on the Turnpike.

Initially, the trial was to last 18 months. The Ohio Department of Transportation helped offset the loss in revenue with fuel tax payments.

The trial was extended through the end of 2006, but the fuel tax payments stopped in mid-2006 and the commission had to raise the rates by 1 cent a mile for commercial trucks beginning Jan. 1, 2007.

The cost of a one-way full length trip across the Ohio Turnpike is $33.50 instead of $31, according to the commission.

We wanted to know what it was like in these “alternate route” cities since 2005, when the rate cut went into effect.

We kept hearing “talk to someone in Bellevue.”

This city of 8,000, situated on U.S. Highway 20 in central Ohio took a big blast from air horns when the rates were raised, but like other cities, saw those numbers drop when the commission lowered the rates and increased the speed limit.

It was nice in the interim, the mayor said, but …

“The rates have gone up again, and we’ve felt the effect of that,” Mayor David E. Kile told us.

 “We feel they should keep the tolls down on the turnpike. But the trucks rates have gone up somewhat and you can see probably a 10 percent increase in truck traffic in Bellevue right now.”

Data from the Ohio Department of Transportation show that in 2003 before the rates were lowered and speed limit increased from 55 mph to 65 mph, 11,585 trucks used the Ohio Turnpike between milepost 91 and milepost 110. That number increased to 14,887 in 2005 after the rates were lowered and speed limit raised, an increase of 28.5 percent.

Bellevue is located between those two mileposts.

The city didn’t have a traffic problem during those times of heavy diversion from the turnpike, it had a truck problem, the mayor said.

“When I say that, we didn’t have congestion like they have in the big cities, but there were times when there would be trucks backed up for a mile trying to get through town.”

To help alleviate some of the backup, the city installed some new traffic signals.

“But it’s inconvenient and we think it’s totally unnecessary for trucks to take U.S. Highway 20 when they could take the turnpike if it was economically feasible for them to do it,” Kile said. “Obviously, they are not going to come through Bellevue if it’s cheaper for them to use the turnpike time wise or moneywise. Time is money and I understand how that part of the trucking business works, so we think that the turnpike fees should be kept down so it makes sense for trucks to use it.”

The large truck traffic generated more complaints from locals than anything else, the mayor said.

In the downtown area it’s more of a noise factor, a quality of life factor with the heavy truck traffic,” Kile said.

Compounding the traffic woes was the fact the U.S. Highway 20 narrowed from four to two lanes as it passed through the center of town because of a railroad underpass. The city was eventually able to make the underpass two lanes west bound.

Bellevue has its own share of local large truck traffic. Solae, a soybean processing plant, is located there, a Whirlpool plant is located in nearby Clyde, Ohio, there is a lot of truck traffic at the local railroad yards and five or six other business that generate a lot of large truck traffic.

“We have a lot of local truck traffic, which is fine. We don’t mind that at all,” Kile said. “But a person traveling across the state — that’s what the turnpike is for.”

 We agree, but we’re also very aware of how much more it costs for a trucker to cross the state eight to 10 times a week during a year than it did in 2006.

Enough to buy a couple of those washing machines they make over at the Whirlpool plant at Clyde.