Tennessee governor suggests pay lanes on busiest highways

Trucker Tim Chelette has been making the same twice-daily drive for 16 years hauling empty whiskey barrels from Louisville to the Jack Daniels distillery in Tennessee, yet his workday keeps getting longer due to time lost in Nashville traffic.

Although trucks wouldn’t be eligible for the pay-to-use express lanes Republican Gov. Bill Lee is advocating for some of Tennessee’s most-congested highways, Chelette supports them because he thinks enough drivers in the fast-growing state capital would take advantage to benefit everyone.

“They’re going to have to do something,” said Chelette, of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who gets paid by distance, not time — even when his 245-mile return trip to the Lynchburg distillery spikes by an hour or more during afternoon rush. “When I get stuck in traffic, I lose money.”

Lee is seeking legislative support to authorize a public-private partnership for the project in Tennessee — one of 14 states that don’t have tolls on any roads.

Unlike traditional toll plazas where every vehicle that passes through pays a standard fee, price-managed lanes allow some drivers to pay up to circumvent congestion — and the fee usually increases as the traffic does.

According to the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, which lobbies on behalf of the projects, 54 of the 89 tolling facilities that opened in the U.S. in the past decade were for price-managed lanes. They can be found across the South in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, as well as such other places as California, Colorado, Washington and Minnesota.

The marketing pitch is important, particularly in the conservative South where voters have long resisted anything resembling a tax hike. But with fuel tax revenues and federal infrastructure payments failing to keep up with the need to repair aging roads or add capacity to reduce congestion, the projects are winning favor — even in Republican-led states where “toll” has been considered a four-letter word.

Supporters counter that the lanes are a way to pay for roads without raising taxes, though they acknowledge they’re sometimes a tricky sell — particularly the public-private partnerships that have funded many of the projects.

Republican state Sen. Frank Niceley said he expects Lee will get enough votes to pass the plan, but he strongly opposes it — even pointing out that fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini liked public-private partnerships, too.

Will Reid, chief engineer and deputy commissioner at the Tennessee Department of Transportation, said the state is uniquely positioned to establish a partnership that avoids the financial pitfalls seen in California and elsewhere.

“We’re one of six no-debt states,” Reid said. “We own every piece of pavement. We own every bridge. We have a strong belief in paying as we go, and paying for the things we decide to build.”

Mark Burris, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Texas A&M University, researched public sentiment for price-managed lanes in four metro areas: Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami and the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. His review found widespread support from drivers in those areas, with more than three-quarters of those surveyed saying they wanted to see more price-managed lanes open.

Some of the paid express lanes in Texas have allowed speed limits as much as 10 mph higher than general-purpose lanes, and Hall, with Texans for Toll-free Highways, said the fee can rise to $3 a mile when traffic is busiest. She argues that’s a regressive double-tax that doesn’t alleviate congestion nearly as much as building additional free lanes would.




An express lanes highway sign marks an entrance in Dallas, Friday, March 3, 2023. There is growing interest in the South in fee-based express lanes in which some drivers can up to avoid congestion on highways where other drivers can access general lanes for free. (AP Photo/LM Otero)