Posted on 11/08/2023 4:22:18 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Among the many trends the pandemic accelerated, one of the least noted has been the increase in so-called cashless toll roads—highways where electronic fee-collection systems have replaced human toll collectors. Now, as traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels, another trend is plaguing these new systems: fare evasion. Around the country, turnpike authorities and bridge and tunnel operators are logging hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as scofflaws find increasingly inventive ways to outfox the systems. Though advocates say that the losses represent a small portion of total revenues, some officials are contemplating raising tolls to account for the shortfalls—in the process costing those who play by the rules more. While drivers love the convenience of breezing along on a highway without toll booths, it’s becoming clear that many highway authorities didn’t have a good plan or the right technology in place to go completely toll-less.
A recent report by the New York State Comptroller’s Office sums up the problem. Since switching to a toll-less collection process in late 2020, the New York State Thruway Authority has racked up $276.3 million in unpaid tolls. The nature of these systems helps explain that staggering number. In the early 1990s, New York began installing sensors to allow drivers with a transponder to pay tolls electronically, but not everyone has joined the system. To dun those without these devices, New York has installed overhead cameras to record the licenses plates of other drivers, who then get billed by mail. The nearly 200 other highways, bridges, and tunnels that have gone cashless around the country generally use the same method. The system has gaps, though. Out-of-state drivers, for instance, are often beyond the reach of these systems and simply ignore the bills they receive. More worrisome is the fact that, as cashless tolling has spread, so has the use of fake licenses plates or plate holders that block cameras from recording the license number. So common are these plate holders that New York City asked Amazon to stop selling them.
Pennsylvania accelerated its plans to go cashless on major toll roads during the pandemic, laying off 500 unionized toll collectors. In its first two years of cashless roads, the state lost more than $250 million to fare beating and inefficient collection systems. In Rhode Island, where some bridges have gone cash-free, a single bridge spanning Narragansett Bay loses some $250,000 a year to toll evaders, according to recent press reports. Alarmingly, many thruway and tunnel authorities don’t have a good handle on just how much they are losing to fraud. And while advocates claimed that cashless roads would be cheaper to run than a manned system with toll collectors, the savings haven’t materialized in some places.
Some highway authorities point out that the losses represent a small portion of revenues. New York Thruway officials, responding to the comptroller’s report, said that they collected some $3.7 billion in tolls during the period that evaders cost them $276.3 million. In Pennsylvania, the highway authority head said that the state took in $1.2 billion in tolls in the first year of cashless operations, compared with a loss of $104 million from evaders.
Still, other drivers are paying the price for those losses. “We are making up for [the losses] through the rates that we charge to our travelers today,” a spokesman for Pennsylvania’s Turnpike Commission admitted after word of the mounting losses leaked out. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, meantime, attributed proposals by the state’s thruway authority to raise tolls at least in part to similar losses, and his report was critical of lackadaisical efforts by the authority to collect its money. Those most likely to pay tolls, such as truck drivers, worry about the cost to their bottom line. “We are not surprised that drivers abuse the system,” the president of the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association says. “Any additional increase in toll prices to recoup those losses would essentially force those that follow the rules to subsidize those that don’t.”
That’s true in other areas. Shoplifting raises prices for consumers, and insurance fraud raises premiums, for example. But the rise of unpaid tolls also seems due at least in part to highway officials’ cavalier rush into cashless payments despite shortcomings in technology and gaping holes in collection and enforcement. It’s easier to operate that way when you run a government-controlled monopoly and can just hike prices to make up for poor performance and other miscues.
Toll-beating seems like another example of how officials treat the law-abiding like chumps, always available to pay for the consequences of bad government.
I recall the Ohio Turn Pike has been owned by a foreign company for many years.
How about dropping tolls altogether?
Now that’s just crazy talk!
You pay for the road and then you pay extra.
The toll road people here in Kali found that the biggest scofflaws were gubmint workers driving gubmint cars.
"How about dropping tolls?"
That's the entire point of systems like Nazi-Pass.
Government rides for free while the serfs are expected to cough it up.
You might be thinking of the Indiana Toll Road. It’s run by a concession company currently held by an Australian firm, if I remember correctly. Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels leased the road to a previous company in 2006.
The M. Boren in the article was Michael Boren, born 10 Mar 1806 in Kentucky and died 11 Jul 1875. He is buried in the Boren cemetery (GPS 32.313699, -96.744037) at Reagor Springs, just off of Hwy 287. The Borens moved to Texas before 1834, and to Ellis county around 1847. Michael Boren was elected Ellis county Commissioner in 1858 and was still listed in The Texas Almanac of 1869 (page 194) as one of the Ellis county Commissioners.
John Henry Streety was born 3 Apr 1842 in Butler county, Alabama, to William Thames Streety, Jr. and Mary Whitfield Hartley. The family had moved to Freestone county, Texas, by 1852. His father died there in 1856, his mother died in Corsicana in 1865. On 11 Feb 1864 at Freestone county, John married Louisa Emeline Jones, of Muskete, Navarro county.
Louisa was the daughter of Thomas O. Jones and Delila Walker. She was born in Navarro county 20 May 1848. She and John had two sons, William Thames and Charles Belah.
Thomas and Delila Jones had a son, William J., who was born in 1845 in Conway county, Arkansas. He married Annie Elizabeth Gammage 14 Apr 1864 in Freestone county. They had a daughter, Mattie Bell, who was born 13 Jul 1865, in Oakwood in Freestone county and died 21 Jan 1934 in Fort Worth.
Mattie Bell married Benjamin Bascomb Kimbell 12 Nov 1882, in Freestone county. They had a son, Kay Kimble, who was born 15 Jun 1886 in Oakwood, Leon county. Or possibly Freestone county, as the town is in both counties.
Kay Kimbell became very wealthy in Fort Worth, and was a philanthropist, especially as benefactor to the Kimbell Art Museum.
we have toll roads where I live, but they are most optional express lanes. but if I use them they cut 1/3 off my travel time.
They are illegal, even though the state Supreme court disagrees with me.
There is NOTHING that .gov can’t (and won’t) F__k Up!
Agreed.
I forgot to add the rest of the toll road survey scofflaws were the cops, judges and others who are “off the DMV books” and therefore cannot be ticketed.
In Florida, you must pay the toll balance before you can reregister your car. I’m sure other states have this program. Out of state thieves need to pay their debts. Soon they will figure a way to send balances to states and they can withhold the registration of welfare creeps.
Government Flaks up everything, don’t they?
“In Florida, you must pay the toll balance before you can reregister your car. I’m sure other states have this program. Out of state thieves need to pay their debts.”
what are gas taxes for?
BTW in your tagline says
“Florida is the freest state in the country”
sounds expensive to me.
So how did the legal action play out regarding the shooting?
That's become the American way. Tax the law abiding to pay for the scofflaws.
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