Say what?!? Why that's totally 'unrealistic' < /sarcasm>
Good for the state to turn road building back to who should have been doing it all along
So every road should be a toll road? Unrealistic, especially in neighborhoods.
That is a dumb proposal. What's wrong with upgrading the current Interstates and creating new connections as opposed to spending hundreds of billions on a redundant pork barrel project?
I'm all for private capitalism, but good, free, public roads are one of the few things government needs to do.
Every time you travel, you spend money and operate the economy, even if you just buy gas. Encouraging travel encourages the economy.
You need to see the result of toll roads like the Turner toll road in Oklahoma, where after 50 years in operation there's practically zero roadside economic development, while the freeways in other areas are crowded with businesses and factories. Same example at the Oklahoma border where the barren Will Rogers turnpike ends, and economic development begins on the freeway. The economic development in the area between Dallas and Ft. Worth didn't really begin until the turnpike between the two cities was opened as freeway.
In Arizona, they've aggressively built freeways around Phoenix in the last 10 years, and it's no coincidence that the city has grown fantastically, and much money made in the private sector.
A century or two ago, many, perhaps most, long overland roads were toll. The old-timers in government bought them up, or built new, free, public roads, and we've seen tremendous development for two centuries. We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that public roads are the same as public businesses, and should be opposed on some libertarian idealistic reasons. It's not the same thing.
You mean foreigners who will be effectively given emminent domain powers? The same Spanish company that is in bed with Perry to build this TTC already has done some work with toll roads in Canada. Many up there aren't very happy with the result.