Would a Port of Miami Truckway Deliver Results?

By Larry Lebowitz, The Miami Herald

Nov. 29–A long-planned-but-not-quite- funded $1 billion tunnel under Government Cut would improve direct truck and tour bus access from the Port of Miami to the expressways and interstates.

But what will happen to all of those trucks and buses once they hit an already traffic-choked expressway system?

A new study released Wednesday by Robert Poole, director of transportation studies for the nonprofit Reason Foundation, encourages local leaders to consider developing a $1 billion-plus network of truck-only tollways.

“It really would be a complement to the port tunnel,” Poole said.

While several local leaders said that improving the long-term economic viability of the port is crucial for the region, they also questioned whether truckers would be willing to pay steep tolls — perhaps as much as $9 per one-way trip — to move cargo faster on separate lanes.

And even with those tolls, the truckway would still need substantial public subsidies, Poole said.

Poole said it would improve safety by separating heavy cargo-bearing trucks from passenger vehicles.

Haulers, he said, could also seek permission to use double- and triple-trailer rigs that are currently banned from most expressways except Florida’s Turnpike.

The study looked at four likely east-west routes, each with one lane of truck traffic in each direction, with very sketchy cost estimates starting in the $1.2-billion range.

All four options start at the port tunnel in the east and end at the turnpike near Doral and Medley. All four combine elevated structures adjacent to existing expressways, plus tunnels along the perimeter of Miami International Airport and at-grade roads on underused rail corridors west of the airport.

If a typical driver can make three round-trips between port and warehouse in an eight-hour shift today, they will be able to make four or more with the time-savings provided by the tollway, Poole said.

The big question: Would truckers, who gross about $147 per trip today, be willing to spend half of that extra trip — $72 a day — in tolls?

Doubling or tripling the load sizes with larger rigs, adding extra trips and avoiding congested roads could provide enough incentive for truckers to pay the tolls, Poole said.

But Steve Erb, one of the directors of the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Co., strongly disagreed. Truckers, he said, have traditionally opposed most tolls.

“If they’re going to ask trucks to pay a toll, and just trucks, I don’t see how it’s going to work,” Erb said.

Plans for a much larger, 59-mile $6.5 billion truck-only tollway are underway in Southern California that would link the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach with inland warehouse and distribution centers.

When Georgia started to weigh a similar truck-only tollway for traffic-choked greater Atlanta, the trucking industry quickly raised $1.6 million to lobby against it, said Rosa Rountree, executive director of the Georgia toll road authority.

Rountree said Georgia is now considering an array of options, including variably priced express lanes similar to the pilot project that Florida is developing on Interstate 95 in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Javier Rodriguez, executive director of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, said variably priced toll lanes, available to all vehicles, would better serve the entire community.

Adjusting the prices to guarantee traffic flows will generate more revenue to justify the project costs, Rodriguez said, and would provide further incentives for truckers to try to haul cargo from the port during off peak hours.

“It’s a starting point for a bigger conversation that will need to take shape over time,” Rodriguez said of the study.

Poole’s study comes at a critical time for the $1 billion port tunnel proposal.

Miami city commissioners have refused to contribute their $50 million portion to the 35-year financing package, the bulk of which is being put up by the state and Miami-Dade County.

The private vendors chosen to finance, design, build, operate and maintain it over a 35-year contract have agreed to extend their prices several times. The latest deadline is Dec. 13.

The port is considered the second-largest engine for the county’s economy behind the airport. “This isn’t really about mobility or congestion,” said former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre. “It’s about economic development. It’s about the economic development future of this community.”

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