Anyone who drives Interstate 95 from here to Philadelphia knows the drill.
At Baltimore, you approach the toll plaza at the Fort McHenry Tunnel and dig two bucks out of your wallet. You fork over an additional $5 at the plaza in Perryville, Md., near the Susquehanna River bridge. And Delaware hits you up for $4 for the privilege of traveling through the First State.
At some point during the drive, I wondered: What does Virginia know that these states don't?
Whatever it is, the Old Dominion needs to unlearn it. If our state is as cash-strapped as politicians profess, and if our road needs are as dire as advertised, we need to restore tolls on Interstate 95.
No, I'm not talking about reinstalling the dreaded Belvidere toll plaza. That plaza, whose bottlenecks brought East Coast traffic to an occasionally violent halt in downtown Richmond, was among several placed on the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, a 35-mile toll road. That stretch of I-95 was completed in 1958 without federal funds.
In 1989, the toll at the Belvidere, Falling Creek and Colonial Heights plazas was increased from 25 cents to 50 cents. That raised the ire of Petersburg government and business leaders, who argued that the tolls hurt area tourism, burdened companies that transported goods between Petersburg and Richmond, and stunted economic development.
The General Assembly ultimately agreed to end the tolls. The three plazas were removed in 1992, but not before their booths had collected more than $500 million in tolls.
Fast-forward 18 years.
Virginia needs money for its crumbling road infrastructure. How about installing a toll plaza near the border of Hanover and Caroline counties?
An average of 47,917 vehicles per day traveled north on I-95 between Kings Dominion and the Caroline County line in 2008, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation. That same year, 42,982 headed south on that stretch every day.
A plaza near the Caroline line would have little impact on Richmond-area commuters. And unlike a downtown toll plaza, it would head off any motorists with an inkling to take I-295 to avoid the tolls.
Before you start howling, consider how much technology has advanced since the Belvidere plaza was dismantled. E-ZPass, the electronic collection system, automatically deducts tolls from motorists' prepaid accounts as they cruise through toll booths. As a result, toll plazas are less congested and less dangerous.
Interstate 95 is the Main Street of the East Coast. Why shouldn't out-of-state motorists be charged to use it, as is the case in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland?
We need to institute this relatively painless fix before neglect and political paralysis take an even greater toll on Virginia's roads.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.
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