“Urge Republican Senators in Kentucky to Support SB 128: Keeping Kentucky’s Freeways Act of 2012.”

(Press release from Paul Fetter)

On January 31, 2012, Louisville State Senators Perry Clark and Denise Harper Angel, both Democrats, reintroduced a bill from last year in the Kentucky Senate called the Keeping Kentucky’s Freeways Free Act of 2012 (SB128).

Here’s the summary:

An ACT relating to the imposition of tolls or fees on federal interstate highways. Create a new section of KRS Chapter 177 to prohibit the imposition of tolls or user fees on any portion of the interstate highway system currently in existence; name the Act the “Keeping Kentucky’s Freeways Free Act of 2012.”

Tolls are a tax, not a “use tax” as Wall Street likes to call them. They disproportionatley tax the working families in our community. With tolls, those who have no choice but to use the infrastructure to get back and forth will bear the full burden of the costs of the infrastructure. The interests behind the push for tolling I-65 are those who will benefit from the new infrastructure with no concern of how it will affect the community it is supposed to serve.

What this bill needs is Republican co-sponsors, and this is why we need 10 minutes of your time. If you are opposed to tolls on the Kennedy Bridge, this is one of the few shots you have left to prevent them.

There are 22 Republicans in the Senate, and they are listed below with a link to their contact information and the counties they represent.

Contact as many as you can, but ideally the ones you have a regional connection with first, like if you have family or business in their district, for example. You don’t have to live in a Senator’s district, or even Kentucky, to contact them and give them your opinion. Copy and paste this and email it (or change it if you like):

Please support the Keeping Kentucky’s Freeways Free Act of 2012 (SB 128). Tolls on existing roads and bridges will cause an unacceptable hardship to my family and my community.

Senators within a rock’s throw of Louisville best understand how important a toll-free Kennedy bridge is to our region’s vitality, they are listed below first. Tolling will pop up all over Kentucky if citizen’s don’t lobby their legislators to stop it!

Louisville area:

The rest of Kentucky:
Senator Joe Bowen Daviess, Ohio
Senator Tom Buford Boyle, Fayette (part), Garrard, Jessamine
Senator Jared Carpenter  Estill, Madison, Rockcastle
Senator Carroll Gibson Breckinridge Butler Grayson Hancock Hart Meade*
Senator David Givens Adair, Barren, Edmonson, Green, Larue, Metcalfe, Monroe
Senator Jimmy Higdon  Casey, Lincoln, Marion, Mercer, Taylor, Washington  

Senator Ken Winters Calloway, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Livingston, Lyon, Trigg  

These links will take you to their respective contact page where you can select the method of contact including email.

Wilbur Smith Assoc Forecasting Record Knocked Hard in Report for Reston VA group

Think target tolls are a safe assumption? This study shows WSA’s projected revenues are over twice too high. “Target toll rates” would have to be more than doubled to meet their average revenue projections. A new report based on the first five years of 12 toll projects forecasted by WSA indicates a large margin of error. The analysis titled Traffic and Revenue Forecasts: Plenty of Room for Error by Terry Maynard finds that forecasts of revenue by WSA as it then was (just recently merged to form CDMSmith) are on average 2.27 times – or 127% too high – as compared with subsequently realized toll revenues. Read the full story here.

About No2BridgeTolls.org
We are a broad-based coalition of businesses, organizations and private individuals who are opposed to tolls on the I-65 Corridor/Kennedy Bridges System. Our targeted focus has been driven by recent announcements by the governors of both states to shift the financing burden for all of the downtown infrastructure needs to the Kennedy Bridge and its I-65 supporting new Downtown Bridge. We have formed under the entity of “Organization for a Better Southern Indiana, Inc.” (OBSI.) Our purpose is to educate the public of the true impact of the current proposed bridge toll on both sides of the river. We are a 501-C6 non-profit organization that has been formed for the purpose of disseminating information. We are not against the bridges–just tolls or user fees on the I-65 Corridor/Kennedy Bridges System, which will divide our community, be a regressive tax that our citizens and businesses cannot afford, and will adversely affect the local economy, disproportionately affecting Southern Indiana.