Tim James and His Toll Road to the Future

Candidate for governor of Alabama, Tim James has talked many times about his success in building the Foley Beach Express toll road in Baldwin County and how that could be a model for future development,

James, who developed the Foley Beach Express toll bridge in Orange Beach, said at a morning news conference at Renasant Bank that a road built years sooner as a toll road instead of waiting until state money is available is an option.

“I’d have to see the numbers,” he said, referring to costs, traffic volumes and toll rates. “Each toll road has to stand on its own.”

James said that once the tolls pay the debt for a road, it should become free for motorists to use.

Really?  Well, let’s just see how that works in practice…

Traffic on the Beach Express toll bridge is on pace to fall for the third straight year, putting the city’s taxpayers in a pinch and forcing them to borrow millions of dollars to meet their obligations in a revenue-sharing pact with the span’s owners.

Hmmmm….so what are we talking about in pure dollar terms?

Early next year, two things will happen. The bridge’s current owners, American Roads LLC, will pay the city for December traffic and reconcile the difference between the 21-cent rate and the 10 cents it pays throughout the year. Orange Beach, meanwhile, will write its next $1.2 million check. The accounting will then look something like this: American Roads: $8.4 million; Orange Beach: $4.3 million.

American Roads LLC bought the bridge as part of a package from an Australian bank, who had bought it from Tim James and his partners for $70 million.  Certainly a great deal for Tim James, not so much a great deal for Baldwin County taxpayers…so far.  Reporter Ryan Dezember does point out in the article that in the long run, the county will make back it’s money, because they only make these payments for the first 10 years, but keep collecting revenue for another 40 years.

However, notice what James proposed in the speech in Huntsville, that the road would be “free use” after the time that the government pays it’s remaining debt.  The idea that these roads can be built cheaper and faster by making them toll roads for a period of time doesn’t seem to work quite as well in practice as Mr. James wants to have us believe.

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