9/29/04-Traffic backups in the Twin Cities metropolitan area can be bad – but not bad enough to prompt a lot of drivers to pay to drive on congestion-free toll lanes, according to early findings of a consulting study.
As a result, the optional pay lanes proposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty would not pay for themselves, the $474,000 study found.
Cambridge Systematics Inc., the Massachusetts consultants hired by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, will give a full public report by February on how Minnesota could proceed with toll lanes as a way to expand roads and relieve congestion.
Looking for an answer to increasingly congested roads and seeking to boost the state’s road-building budget without raising the fuel tax, Pawlenty and Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau announced in December that the state would consider privately built lanes financed with tolls.
Molnau, who also is the state transportation commissioner, said she is undeterred by the early findings.
“We knew we would have to put up a percentage” of the cost, she told the Star Tribune. The full study will reveal how much.
She said tolls are one way to have users voluntarily chip in for new lanes that are needed. And having private firms put up some of the initial costs of construction would leave the highway department with money to spend on other projects, she said.
The consultants are studying proposals including radial toll lanes that would provide travel from all four sides of the metro into Minneapolis and St. Paul; two versions of tolls on extra lanes added to the Interstate 494-694 beltway; pay lanes on 10 freeway segments where congestion is especially bad; and tolls collected on four future busways.
The earliest construction would start is 2006.
Much closer to realization is a plan to turn the existing carpool-bus lanes on Interstate 394 west of Minneapolis into toll lanes. Those lanes, which are expected to open in the spring, would enable solo drivers to pay a fee to use an express lane with carpoolers and bus riders.

7/20/04-The Minnesota Department of Transportation has decided to slow its pursuit of privately built toll lanes in the Minneapolis metropolitan area.
Last December, Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that his administration was ready to ask private companies to build more lanes on congested highways and then recoup the costs through tolls.
MnDOT charged ahead with the idea early this year – but met resistance from state lawmakers, who demanded a slower approach.
In response, the transportation agency last week hired a consulting team to start from the beginning and report on the prospects for inviting private firms to construct optional, congestion-relief toll lanes.
The report, expected by the end of the year, will look at information collected from turning the existing carpool-bus express lanes on Interstate 394 into toll lanes. Those lanes are expected to open in spring 2005.
Consultants will use state and federal data to answer questions about where optional toll lanes would likely succeed; how many people would use them; how much public funding would be needed to support them; and how privately built lanes would fit in with the road work already scheduled.
A key target of the information will be local city councils, which have veto authority on toll lanes in their communities.
In Minnesota, two types of toll lanes are under consideration.
One type already in the works is on I-394 west of Minneapolis. MnDOT will convert the freeway’s existing “sane” lane to an optional toll lane by next spring. It will allow solo drivers to pay a fee to use an express lane with carpoolers and bus riders who will continue to use it free of charge.
The second type would be newly constructed toll lanes added to existing freeways. The new lanes would be financed and built by private companies in partnership with the state. The potential for this type of lane is what the highway department is studying.

2/3/04-Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that his administration would ask private companies to build more lanes on congested highways then recoup the costs through tolls.
The lanes would be privately built, but publicly owned. When paid for, the fees would stop for highway users.
Pawlenty said the Minnesota Department of Transportation would issue an official request for interest from private companies. The list of possible corridors so far is limited to freeways in the northern and western Twin Cities.
It would be at least four years before any new lanes might be ready for traffic.
The state has the authority to go forward with the plan for state highways if there are interested companies. Interstates are a cloudier issue and Minnesota may need federal approval.
U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-MN, has introduced legislation in Congress that would repeal a federal prohibition against adding toll lanes to existing interstate highways.
No estimates on how much tolls might be have been provided.