Manager: South Ogden toll road not raking in profits
Van Gailey, 83, of Uintah, greets customers Friday at the Adams Avenue Parkway in South Ogden. (NICK SHORT/Standard-Examiner)
Van Gailey, 83, of Uintah, greets customers Friday at the Adams Avenue Parkway in South Ogden. (NICK SHORT/Standard-Examiner)
Van Gailey greets a customers at the Adams Avenue Parkway Friday, June 8, 2012 in South Ogden, Utah. (NICK SHORT/Standard-Examiner)
SOUTH OGDEN– You wouldn’t think there would be much to it, really. The Adams Avenue Parkway Toll Road is just a mile long.
It costs $1 to drive on the private road that connects Highway 84 and Adams Avenue Parkway (500 East). If you are driving a big truck or a marked private company vehicle, it’s usually $2.
“I don’t know where those rumors come from that say the road paid for itself in the first year,” said Breon Jacobs, manager of the toll road.
Jacobs said the road has always paid its own way, just not by a huge margin.
To gather enough money to build the road in 2001, the Stephenson family, which owns the property, had to take out 20-year loans with the Utah Department of Transportation.
Jacobs said when the first loan payment came due the third year the road was opened, the books went down to a very small balance.
“The owners said, ‘Don’t spend any money. This company is broke,’ ” Jacobs said.
He said he never would have suspected a toll road would make it in Utah.
“For whatever reason, there still are people who won’t take a toll road — but we never see them here.”
Despite any attitudes people may have about a toll road, traffic on the private road increases every year, Jacobs said. About 1,800 cars drive on it each day lately.
But there’s more to the road than just people driving through to save time and money.
A frequent phenomenon occurs there, and Jacobs calls “pay it forward.”
Especially during the Christmas season, but at other times of the year as well, customers will “pay it forward” by giving attendants extra money to pay for the cars behind them.
And Jacobs said that usually starts a whole chain of events as the drivers in the next cars also wish to pay for the cars behind them.
The manager said a donation of $100 can last for as many as 130 or more cars because people keep paying even though they don’t have to.
But then there are others who don’t pay, even though they are expected to.
Jacobs said he watches the surveillance cameras, gets their license plate numbers and usually can get them on the phone within minutes of their arriving at home.
“They usually were just distracted or confused or something,” he said. “I’ve only had to call the police once.”
But it was the police who recently had to be called out on failure to pay.
Jacobs said some Utah Highway Patrol officers didn’t realize the parkway charges the owner of any vehicle that uses the road.
And the officers went through, even though UHP didn’t have an account with the parkway.
Jacobs said a phone call to the agency cleared that up.
He said buses, ambulances, everyone pays.
But, he said, customers should rest assured that the toll road is one service that hasn’t been affected by inflation.
“Inflation for toll roads in Utah has been stagnant for about 150 years,” Jacobs said, noting that a toll bridge across the Weber River in the 1850s or 1860s once charged horse-drawn wagons $1 to cross.
And with modern technology, customers can be sped along if they open an account.
Instead of having to hand the attendant $1 every time, account customers may have a sticker on their car or a card that may be scanned.
Customers may pay on their account over the phone with a credit card or turn in an application and money as they drive through.
And for every $10 drivers spend, they get 11 opportunities to use the road.
Click here for information about the Adams Avenue Parkway.
You may also call the office at 801-475-1909.
