Looneytarian dream: Toll roads

[Major Nikon]

Toll roads are a looneytarian dream because it's a pure use tax. Only those who use the service are charged. OK, so let's see how this great idea works in practice.

According to wiki, the Turner Turnpike in Oklahoma has one of the cheapest per mile costs in America.

A two-axle vehicle currently pays $4 ($3.90 with Pikepass) to drive the full length of the Turnpike. When adjusted for inflation, tolls have fallen over 50% to 4.65 cents per mile, among the cheapest in the nation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Turnpike

So what would it cost if this road wasn't a toll road? If Oklahoma didn't have so many toll roads, they would probably have to charge a higher rate for fuel tax. Their current state/fed combined fuel tax rate is about 35 cents per gallon on regular gasoline. A nearby state, Arkansas, with few toll road miles charges 40.2 cents per gallon, so I'll go with that figure. The average light duty mileage rate in the US is 23.8 mpg (combined mileage, not highway so a conservative figure). The Turner turnpike is 86 miles long.

So...

23.8 mpg @ 86 miles equals 3.61 gallons of gas. 3.61 gallons of gas at 40.2 cents per gallon tax is $1.45. If the Turner Turnpike were a 'free' road, it would cost you $1.45 on average, to drive across it. So the toll road cost is almost 3 times higher. Remember also that this toll road is one of the cheapest per mile toll roads in the nation, so for most other toll roads, you pay more and sometimes a lot more. So maybe someone can argue that roads are subsidized from the general fund. I don't believe this happens to any great extent, but even if you double the cost of paying for the road via fuel taxes for the sake of argument, it's still considerably cheaper than the cheapest toll road you can find.

[2on2u]

1. That's even cheaper than the troll roads in here!! n/t

[treestar]

2. There would still have to be public roads somewhere

The problem with looneytarians is they live in the 18th century. It is just not practical to privatize everything now. Imagine having to stop for a toll at every turn. Just stupid.

[Major Nikon]

3. There are solutions to this

Automated systems are the norm now for toll roads. I'm not entirely sure that requiring them would pass constitutional muster, but at least such a system would be conceivable, if not impractical.

[Kolesar]

4. Michael Kinsley deconstructed the libertarian fantasy of toll roads on every residential street

Presumably, they would have subscriptions for everybody in the community and an elaborate cost sharing system so you don't get ticketed for driving to grandma's house in another town.

[Warpy]

5. I know I drove way out of my way from Boston to NYC

in order to avoid the Ct. Turnpike, probably the most miserable toll road in the country. You can barely accelerate to speed along part of it before you run into another damn toll booth. It's heavily traveled and in poor repair, a thoroughly miserable way to go.

Any Looneytarian who thinks toll roads are such a great idea needs to go back and forth on that stinker daily for about two weeks. I guarantee he'll crack and rethink it.

[Nikia]

6. I think that it works better in states where there is a lot of interstate travel

So that people who are driving through the state pay for the roads for useage, especially truckers. I know that fuel tax can accomplish the same thing, but there is always the chance that if nearby states are cheaper that the vehicles will just fill up on either side of the border. I am thinking of states like Indiana and Ohio. It saves the people actually living in the state a little bit of money on road construction and maintenance costs which can be expensive.

[Major Nikon]

8. Roughly half the fuel tax is federal

So regardless of where they fill up, they are still paying, at least partially. Toll roads are cheaper for those who don't use the roads, but if you do use them, they are considerably more expensive. The example I gave works out to 1.7 cents per mile, and this is going to be pretty constant regardless of where you drive. In some states it will be a little more, in others a little less, but it won't vary much for the average driver. With toll roads, the cheapest you'll pay is 4.65 cents per mile and this will increase greatly depending on which toll road.

It costs $16.50 to drive the Ohio turnpike which is 241 miles long. That's 6.8 cents per mile. Ohio fuel taxes are a bit higher, but it still works out to be less than 2 cents per mile which is more than 3 times cheaper.

[JHB]

7. I've used toll roads as an argument against Libertarianism...

...or at least against the Libertarians stated goals.

Imagine every single road was turned into a toll road: if you put a wheel on any given stretch, you'd be billed for your share of its maintenance. Use it more often: higher bill. It would be weighted for vehicle weight and type, too: if you vehicle puts more wear & tear on the road, you get a higher bill. Every person, every bulk cargo, very bit of merchandise is made to contribute to maintaining the roads they use for travel.

So how does affect things going forward? To reduce road charges, you get clustering: fewer people on long, less used stretches, more people trying to take shorter trips and sharing rides (including using busses) to cut costs. The optimal case in this situation are developments at walkable distances to high-capacity roads and rail.

A lot of people consider that sort of place pretty nice, but it's Libertarian Hell, isn't it? Lots of people in a relatively small area requires all sorts of planning, regulations, and obligations to other people that Libertarians just can't abide.

It also requires tracking every single vehicle for billing purposes. Of course, nobody but the evil gummint would abuse that information, right?