Toomay on Morning Jerk: Why would you build a road and not put a toll on it?

[deminks]

toll not troll

Why? 'Cause governments don't have any money for infrastructure. Why? 'Cause GOPers have destroyed equitable tax codes for federal and most states. Why? So governments have to partner with private industry to repair the infrastructure or do anything else- and private industry always puts off costs on the consumer. It's what they do.

Do you know the current toll on the GWB? $13.00. One way. Cash. Why do I get the feeling that not all of the toll money will go to repairs?

http://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/tolls.html

[madokie]

1. It cost me a quarter to go 7 miles on the safe road to my homeplace

I have a choice, a winding killer of a road or pay the quarter and drive a relatively safer road.

[djean111]

2. What if it cost $13.00?

[madokie]

4. Just making a point

that I have to fork over cash money to get the privilege to drive a better route. thats all
The old hiway I mention is a proven Killer and has been as long as it has been in existence.

[djean111]

5. I see your point.

I do feel that, now that the federal government has blessed toll roads, there may no longer be viable alternatives to toll roads at all. And the tolls, of course, will keep rising.
To characterize this as a deliberate way to keep emissions down, as I have seen elsewhere, is specious. This will hurt people who have to drive to work, and this is no longer the America where someone can just airily say to find a job you can walk to or find an online job.

[seabeckind]

11. I'd question this part

When does "people who have to drive to work" differ from "people who decide to drive to work"?

Take the GWB case for example. $13 one way, $26 a day, $130 a week, $6500 a year. I can't imagine choosing a lifestyle that requires me to have an overhead of that amount of money and then add the cost of the vehicle and the time involved.

I'd have to be crazy to do that. And by projection, I would consider anyone else to be just as crazy.

So what about this "people who have to drive to work"? Maybe they don't really have to? Or at least not as an ongoing requirement. BTW, I feel the same about the people who choose to commute more than an hour a day. I'll be more than happy to help the have to but no way will I agree to subsidize the want to.

Now let's talk about the societal impact. At what point does this person's lifestyle choice start to impact my lifestyle choice? And do I get to have some say in their choice? Example, global warming. That guy in his commute will affect my longterm survival. When do I get to say he can't drive a hummer 150 miles each way on a highway that I helped pay for? When do we as a society say: No, your personal lifestyle choice impacts everyone else and we're not going to let you do it.

By fiat or penalty.

[VMA131Marine]

12. GWB toll is paid one-way only going into the Bronx.

It's also cheaper with an EZ-Pass, which, if you did the trip everyday, you almost certainly would want to have.

[seabeckind]

13. So only half-crazy? n/t

[sendero]

6. Toll roads...

.... owned and administered by a government entity have their place. Privately owned toll roads do not.

[leftyohiolib]

3. it wont be a quarter and it will go up like insurance

[Firebrand Gary]

7. The movie 'In Time' handled the whole toll thing perfectly.

In the film, over time the toll is essentially used as a measure to keep poor people in their 'proper place'. It acts a series of layers that become progressively more expensive. Example: Maybe it cost you $5 to venture out of a rural poor community in Appalachia, $100 to cross into Philadelphia and $1200 to get into Manhattan.

[octoberlib]

8. This article is from 2008 but still applicable.

Privatizing toll roads in the U.S. may result in significant diversions of truck traffic from privatized toll roads to "free" roads, and may result in more crashes and increased costs associated with use of other roads, according to a new study. First, many of the substitute roads are two-lane highways with crash rates many times that of the Turnpike. Second, the increased traffic has reduced the quality of life for communities located along diversion routes and dramatically increased the maintenance costs of many of these roads, say the researchers.
Finally, higher truck tolls have two negative effects on the economy. Motor carriers eventually pass all tolls to consumers in the form of higher prices for goods. While higher toll rates may not decrease the efficiency of non-diverted trucks, they have raised costs.

The study researchers question whether it makes good policy sense to substitute the existing fuel tax-based system of funding road infrastructure with a system that uses widespread tolls and to grant long-term leases to private enterprises that will operate them for profit."The combination of inadequate maintenance, lack of capital for new capacity, and ever-growing demand has led to renewed calls for tolls," Swan and Belzer state. "It is curious that national policy clearly supports sales or long-term leases of roads to private parties when such negative results can be expected.
"It does not appear that the U.S. Department of Transportation has considered how far tolling and highway privatization should go ... how such a market-based system of interstate highways will affect the parallel system of publicly-owned state and local roads ... or the effect of private tolling on interstate commerce - unless U.S. DOT is already committed to the toll-based funding for all roads.

"If the true problem is that political leaders are unwilling to face the voters with the reality that there is no free lunch, then the problem we seek to solve by tolling and privatization will not solve the problem at all. In fact, our research suggests that it will only make the problem worse," Swan and Belzer say.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080114162501.htm

[think]

9. When your govt cuts taxes for the rich and borrows money to go to war

you need toll roads.....

[Octafish]

10. Bingo!

What think wrote.

[wandy]

14. +1

[Stallion]

15. Plus Tollroads By-Pass Progressive Taxation

and the burden falls more squarely on middle/lower classes.