Posted on 03/11/2014 7:41:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The overpriced gas and food, and the limited choices at those toll service centers in Pennylvania and Maryland.
Don’t forget the one halfway through Deleware on 95. Where on busy weekends they deliberately create slowdowns at the toll plaza into MD to create a big backup that extends right to the rest stop’s entrance ramp.
Although I have to admit that PA has a clever setup where they don’t allow direct access between crossing interstates but make cars get off and drive down a mile or two of local streets lined with gas stations and restaurants before getting back on again.
What a jerk thing to think. EVERYONE IN AMERICA USES THE ROAD. Some don’t drive but buy goods that the road has to be used for them to get it. WHERE DO WE GET THESE FOOLS, I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND.
What universe does Barone live in? Since when have gas taxes been used to construct or repair roads?
You will never get me to agree to a toll road, EVER.
We spent a lot of blood and tears getting rid of the tolls here on GA 400 that paid for itself several times over. We had to threaten to hang the governor to do it.
The gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon. My car gets about 30 MPG, so the tax works out to .61 cents per mile, or 163 miles for each dollar of tax.
I live in New Jersey. The New Jersey Turnpike is supported by tolls. To drive from the Delaware Memorial Bridge to Exit 11 (my exit) costs me $7.25 for 90.6 miles, with works out to 8 cents per mile.
So the Turnpike Toll costs me 13.1 times as much as the gas tax!
I have no problem with usage fees instead of gas taxes... tomato/tomahto... But I got a big problem with a 1310% tax increase. And I suspect the usage fees are going to be a lot closer to the NJ Turnpike Tolls than are to the Gas Tax.
We have two recently completed toll roads here in the Pittsburgh area.
They are the most lightly traveled four-lane expressways in the entire region. Virtually nobody drives on them.
The Gas Tax is one tax for the whole country. You try to raise that, and there is a political price to be paid.
But if there are a thousand little road use zones, each with it’s own tax rate, each rate can be raised, little by little, with hardly any objection from the taxpaying population.
So the per mile usage fee will increase exponentially, while the Gas Tax has stayed the same for years. The first person who expresses surprise when this happens should be put up against the wall.
Wherever you see a toll road still in existence, chances are good its original cost has been recouped. In some older eastern seaboard areas, several times over.
One question I always ask about any proponent of toll roads is “can you give me specific example of any case where tolls have ever gone down, particularly for ones where they have been paid for multiple times.” They invariably cannot.
They are an excuse for building a new convenient road and then they mutate into jobs programs and slush funds for politicians. You can see how differing political areas deal with responsibilities (i.e., how much graft and greed there is) by the disrepair on sections of I-285 in Atlanta, for example.
I agree with you about some toll roads not being traveled. The ones I’ve seen around Denver are a good, good example. An excuse for largess to government cloaked in supposed convenience.
I too believe that that would be the simplest and, perhaps, the fairest system.
Am I too optimistic in presuming that it would be possible to design and build a tamper-proof odometer?
When he was our Governor, Fast Eddie Rendell tried to cram down a scheme to throw toll booths up on I-80 so that he could fund his transportation boondoggles with money from those of you who are only passing through PA.
An idea so incredibly illegal, even the Obama Administration could not finagle a way to make it happen.
The people who use the least should also pay at least a minimum fee to “share” the pain! Get em at both ends. We cannot have people not paying taxes!! :-)
If a tire touches the road, it is taxed.
Why not just build roads to last?
I am not trying to get you to agree. I am just pointing out that the current system is socialized: some people get more, others get less for what they pay. Some don’t pay at all.
Go green, get a usage tax instead.
That is true. However there never is a guarantee government will do as they tell us they will. More times than not they lie and steal from us to line their pockets or their crony’s. Promises, oaths and pledges mean nothing except during the course of on 24-48 hour news cycle.
There is a toll bridge across the Mississippi in Louisiana, the Sunshine Bridge. Named after Governor Jimmy Davis, who had a gold record, “You are My Sunshine”. When I was a child, the toll was 35 cents. Today, the toll is a whopping: FREE. After the bridge was paid for, they got rid of the toll.
Raped by taxes already, it sucks on the highway to have to slow down, stop, queue up, crawl through a pay station to throw more money at a government employee.
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