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Section 1 allows two additional exceptions to the prohibition on toll facilities in current law. The prohibition would not apply to:
· a lane that adds capacity, operated temporarily as a general purpose or auxiliary lane until converted to a high-occupancy toll lane; or
· a general purpose or auxiliary lane converted to a high-occupancy toll lane, except that a general purpose lane may only be converted if capacity has been added in that segment of the highway designated as a MnPASS corridor in MnDOT’s metro district highway investment plan.
Section 2 adds “high-occupancy toll lanes” to the list of trunk highway lanes for which vehicle operators may be charged user fees.
Section 3 makes changes to the deposit and appropriation of user fee revenues collected from users of dynamic shoulder lanes, high-occupancy vehicle lanes, and high-occupancy toll lanes. The section:
· eliminates references to a separate Interstate Highway 35W lane account (that account is repealed in Section 4 of the bill);
· removes a requirement that a separate account be established for revenues from each trunk highway corridor;
· removes the requirement that MnDOT first repay the trunk highway or other fund that paid for a corridor’s ability to collect user fees, and retains the use of these revenues to administer and operate a corridor’s fee collection system, including the costs of operation and tolling equipment;
· specifies that the portion of the account money that is to be spent on transportation capital improvements is available for replacement of tolling and related equipment; and
· removes the limitation that the portion of the account money to be spent on expansion of metropolitan bus transit services must be for expansion beyond the level of service provided on the date of implementation of the fee collection authority.
Section 4 repeals the Interstate Highway 35W high-occupancy vehicle and dynamic shoulder lane account, and provisions related to deposit and disbursement of its revenues.
KB/BB:rer
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