Taking its toll: Arizona pilot project turned down

Forget being nickeled and dimed. Nevadans have been plucked by the buck, with steady hikes in their water, power and gasoline bills, not to mention ever-higher taxes.

But Silver State residents finally got some good pocketbook news from an unlikely source: Washington. The Federal Highway Administration announced Monday that Arizona’s 30-mile stretch of Interstate 15, between Mesquite and St. George, Utah, was not selected for a federal toll road pilot program.

If it had been approved, toll booths would have been built at the highway’s Nevada and Utah borders, where passenger vehicles would have been charged between $1 and $3 to cross a nearly uninhabited stretch of Arizona. Commercial trucks would have faced far steeper tolls, ranging from $6 to $10. For the many Nevada and Utah residents who pass through Arizona to visit family or conduct business, such fees would quickly add up. Goods shipped between Canada and Mexico would incur yet another cost to be passed on to customers.

Don’t get us wrong — we don’t have a problem with toll roads in general. In fact, tolls are among the fairest ways to fund highway construction and maintenance, because the user pays. Nevada soon might have its first toll road: the Boulder City bypass. The 2011 Legislature passed a bill that could allow private investors to build that stretch of highway and give motorists traveling between Arizona and Nevada a choice: pay a few bucks to take a faster route around Boulder City or pay no toll and take the existing, slower road through town.

The problem with Arizona’s proposal was its transparent greed. Arizona greatly benefits from that stretch of I-15 because it provides commercial traffic with a path north out of the state, around the Grand Canyon and through Las Vegas. Yet very few Arizona residents use I-15 because almost no one lives in the far northwestern corner of the state. And Arizona’s portion of the interstate will never be widened from four to six or eight lanes — it would cost far too much money to justify blasting out more of the spectacular Virgin River Gorge.

Tolls, like taxes, are never temporary. Once instituted, they remain — even as part of a so-called "pilot" program. Although Arizona incurs costs maintaining I-15, such a high toll would quickly turn into a cash cow for other Arizona highways — ones Nevadans and Utah residents don’t use.

A better course for Arizona: Negotiate with Nevada, Utah and the federal government for maintenance support. Nevada has a big stake in keeping all of Interstate 15 safe and smooth — but not as much as Arizona clearly would like to believe.