The authority may set and collect tolls and charges, contract for project facilities, and set lease terms; it must offer gasoline service stations separately for sealed-bid leasing and award the lease to the highest responsible bidder after 4 weeks’ notice. Certain branded fuel sales and station use are restricted.
§1261. Revenues A. The authority is hereby empowered to fix, revise, charge and collect tolls and charges for the use of each project and the different parts or sections thereof, to contract with any person, partnership, association or corporation desiring the use of any part thereof for the purpose of providing any of the facilities comprehended in the term "expressway project" as defined herein, when, in the opinion of the authority, such facilities are necessary or desirable, and to fix the terms, conditions, rates and charges for use; provided that facilities for motor fuel and food shall be publicly offered for the operation thereof under rules and regulations to be established by the authority. Such tolls shall not be subject to supervision or regulation by any other commission, board or agency of the state. B. To afford users of any expressway project a reasonable choice of motor fuels of different brands, each gasoline service station or site therefor shall be separately offered for lease upon sealed bids for private operation and, after at least 4 weeks notice of the offer has been published in a newspaper having general circulation in the state, each such lease shall be awarded to the highest responsible bidder therefor, who may provide for the operation of the service station by a third person, but no person shall be awarded or have the use of, nor shall motor fuel identified by the trademarks, trade names, or brands of any one supplier, distributor, or retailer of such fuel be sold at, (1) consecutive service stations along one side of the expressway, or (2) more than one service station if they constitute more than 20 percent of the service stations on the expressway project. C. Such tolls shall be so fixed and adjusted in respect of the aggregate of tolls on each expressway project in connection with which the bonds of any issue shall have been issued as to provide a fund sufficient with other revenue from such expressway project to pay (a) the cost of maintaining, repairing and operating such expressway project, and (b) the principal of and the interest on such bonds as the same shall become due and payable, and to create reserve for such purposes. The tolls and all other revenue derived from each expressway project or sections thereof in connection with which the bonds of any issue shall have been issued, except such part thereof as may be necessary to pay such cost of maintenance, repair and operation and to provide such reserves therefor as may be provided for in the resolution authorizing the issuance of such bonds or in the trust agreement securing the same, shall be set aside at such regular intervals as may be provided in such resolution or such trust agreement in a sinking fund which is hereby pledged to and charged with, the payment of the principal of and the interest on such bonds as the same shall become due, and the redemption price or the purchase price of bonds retired by call or purchase as therein provided. Such pledge shall be valid and binding from the time when the pledge is made; the tolls or other revenues or other moneys so pledged and thereafter received by the authority shall immediately be subject to the lien of such pledge without any physical delivery thereof or further act, and the lien of any such pledge shall be valid and binding as against all parties having claims of any kind in tort, contract or otherwise against the authority irrespective of whether such parties have notice thereof. Neither the resolution nor any trust agreement by which a pledge is created need be filed or recorded except in the records of the authority. The use and disposition of moneys to the credit of such sinking fund shall be subject to the provisions of the Chapter and such regulations as the resolution authorizing the issuance of such bonds or such trust agreement may provide. Except as may otherwise be provided in such resolution or such trust agreement, such sinking fund shall be a fund for all such bonds without distinction or priority of one over another. Acts 1954, No. 232, §11.