Here a toll, there a toll, everywhere a ...

As lawmakers prepare for yet another special session on transportation funding, there is one unavoidable bottom line for Hampton Roads.

Someday soon, drivers will have to pay an admission tax to get into the region. They’ll pay again to get out. Toll plazas will ring South Hampton Roads from the north to the west. Six years ago, tolls were an option, not a necessity. Now, every plan to pay for our multibillion-dollar road projects is chock full of tolls.

Five of the six projects identified by the region as priorities will depend heavily on tolls. And growing support to expand the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel inevitably will add another.

While tolls are old news, new questions are emerging over who gets to pocket the revenues, how high the user fees should be and how long drivers will have to pay them. The state already uses public-private partnerships for some highways, but only a fraction are paid solely with tolls.

Three companies have proposals for a new U.S. 460, but the project is stalled, in part because the state has not come up with its share, estimated at several hundred million dollars.

Another option getting more attention from Republican leaders is a long-term lease. A corporation constructs and maintains a road, bridge or tunnel in return for the right to collect toll revenues for 50, 75 or even 100 years.

An executive for Skanska USA Civil Inc. told a transportation commission last week that his company could add a third tunnel to HRBT in five years. Skanska would sweeten the deal with an up-front payment of $400 million that could be rolled over to get the U.S. 460 project moving. The company would then collect a $2 one-way toll on HRBT and the Monitor Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel.

Skanska is part of a team with a pending proposal for U.S. 460. Some companies also have had conversations with individual legislators, who are pressuring the Virginia Department of Transportation to move faster on private deals. This makes it harder to ensure the proposals are handled without suggestions of favoritism.

Privately leased roads typically mean higher tolls because companies must turn a profit. In Loudoun County, for example, the average toll on the state-operated Dulles Toll Road is $1.25, but the privately leased Dulles Greenway nearby costs $4. The difference can be reduced with proper contract guarantees, but rarely erased.

State and regional leaders must consider how tolls will affect Hampton Roads and its economy. The region has historically been set apart from the rest of the state. The interstate system has improved access to and from the region, but growing congestion threatens to erase that progress. Will a gauntlet of tolls make things better or worse?

The question is particularly delicate for a region heavily dependant on tourism. New technology allows motorists with a gizmo on their windshield to whiz through toll facilities with ease. But what about the station wagon from Kentucky hauling a load of squirming children to the beach? Will tourists stew in long lines at the toll booth? Will their license plates be photographed so they can receive a bill when they get back home? Will they perceive that as a convenience or a penalty?

State and regional leaders have allowed Hampton Roads transportation problems to fester so long that any solution will be difficult and expensive. In 2002, a penny sales tax increase in the region was adequate to pay for its six priority projects without tolls. But a referendum on the tax badly failed, and construction costs have escalated.

Now a mix of tolls and regional taxes is necessary. That’s one of the few things Gov. Tim Kaine and lawmakers in both parties agree on.

Whether it’s at the gas pump, a toll booth or both, residents in the region are going to pay for six years of navel-gazing at the State Capitol.

No one wants Hampton Roads to turn into Delaware, with its battery of toll plazas. Then again, no one wants the region to turn into a parking lot the size of Delaware, either.

Christina Nuckols is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. Reach her at (804) 697-1562 or christina.nuckols@pilotonline.com.