Reason Talks About Truck-Only Lanes in Missouri

From the latest email edition of Surface Transportation Innovations, by Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation:

Progress on Truck Toll Lanes

In September I chaired a panel on truck-only toll lanes at the ARTBA Public-Private Ventures conference. In addition to overview discussions on the federal Corridors of the Future program and the general concept of truck toll lanes, two presentations focused on specific project proposals, one long-haul and the other urban.

The long-haul project would add truck-only lanes (almost certainly tolled) to I-70 across four states: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. That would serve the important truck corridor from the multimodal centers of Kansas City on the west to Columbus (and a bit beyond) on the east. Presenter Steve Wells summarized the current supplemental environmental impact study that HNTB is conducting for Missouri DOT on the truck lanes concept. MoDOT has conducted public opinion research which found strong support for the widening of I-70 to be accomplished via truck-only lanes.