Science Pubs: "Tolls, Tolls Everywhere... A New Fact of Life in Hampton Roads"

February 16, 2018

Wie Yusuf

Science Pubs are back, and focused on tolls in Hampton Roads, an issue of rapidly growing importance.

"It's contentious, and very complex," said Wie Yusuf, associate professor of public administration, in the College of Business.

Her talk, "Tolls, tolls everywhere...a new fact of life in Hampton Roads," will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 21 at Oozlefinch Craft Brewery on Fort Monroe.

Yusuf's research came out of a recurring question she's come across since joining ODU's faculty in 2004: How do we pay for transportation infrastructure?

In recent years, there's been a growing trend of using public-private partnerships to fund transportation infrastructure without large financial investment from governments. Most public-private partnerships rely on tolls.

"I'm also interested in behavioral public finance (how people respond to taxes, fees, etc.) and environmental justice," Yusuf said. "Studying public support for and driver responses to tolling was a natural research focus given our region's experiences with tolling."

She's surveyed residents to explore how tolls affect perceptions of the community, support for tolls, and how drivers respond, including if they'll take a different route to avoid paying.

"An interesting finding was that there were almost equal percentages of support and opposition to tolls," Yusuf said. "More recently, I've been studying how drivers respond to the tolls, and how they avoid traveling on tolled facilities. More than 40 percent of drivers changed their commute to avoid tolls or avoided destinations requiring travel through a tolled facility."

Science Pubs is an opportunity for the community to engage with ODU researchers in an informal setting. Networking begins at 6 p.m., followed by trivia and the talk at 6:30 p.m. RSVPs are recommended but not required.

Along with Yusuf's talk on Feb. 21, Science Pubs spring schedule includes:

• "Lightning Talks" on March 21 at O'Connor Brewing in Norfolk; and
• "3-D Printing: Merging Antiquity & New Technology in Art Making" with Alison Stinely on April 26 at the Bearded Bird in Norfolk's NEON art district.

"Lightning Talks" are five-minute or less talks given by graduate students from across the University. Topics include biology, oceanography, humanities, psychology, business and more.