Published: November 06, 2009 09:49 am      

’Pike toll collections on mark, Barr says

CHARLESTON — Toll collections are right on the mark for the West Virginia Turnpike, just where traffic engineers figured them to be under the recently imposed higher fares, even though the ranks of truckers are falling.

Fares rose Aug. 1, and in September, the turnpike’s take was $6,437,298, contrasted with $4,289,503 for the same month in the previous year.

For the three months ending in September, the highway collected $19,064,692, compared to $14,633,861 in the corresponding period of 2008, or a 30.3 percent increase.

“We’re on target,” Manager Greg Barr said Thursday as the road’s governing agency, the state Parkways Authority, met in Charleston.

“Right now, during August, September and October, traffic is higher. So revenue will be a little higher in those months. But it will drop off in January and February.”

Before the toll increase was implemented, engineers projected an increase of some $19 million.

“Percentage-wise, as long as we stay 35 to 40 percent above the same month from the previous year, we’re achieving the estimates of the traffic engineers,” Barr said.

“Right now, we’re 40 to 45 percent.”

Passenger car transactions rose 7.2 percent in the three months ending in September contrasted with last year, but commercial trucks fell by 11.1 percent.

“Truck traffic is terrible,” Barr acknowledged. “It’s a national trend, the recession, reflecting the goods that are being shipped and the inventory being stored.

“It’s purely a reflection of the economy.”

A bump always arrives Thanksgiving week, and this year is likely to be no exception, Barr said, with the turnpike bracing for a 5 to 6 percent increase.

Wednesday and Sunday are typically the busiest days of the holiday period, and the toll road is taking all precautions to keep traffic flowing, he said.

That would include the use of tandem toll booths if needed and refusing to designate one lane as E-ZPass only since most travelers are out-of-staters and so few would have transponders it would cause jams in the other lanes, Barr said.

Finance committee chair Cam Lewis said the biggest complaint he hears is from E-ZPass users who don’t have a lane set aside exclusively for them.

Looking over the past decade, finance director Parrish French advised the board not to expect any major upswing in traffic.

“We’ve had a real flat growth period in the last 10 years,” he said.