Posted on 01/08/2007 5:20:43 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Wishful thinking.
Phoenix is building a little choo-choo like Houston's. I predict it will get even less traffic. No sane person wants to walk to a mass transit stop in 116 degree weather. The only people who ride mass transit here are the illegals, and non-illegals don't like to hang with them on the bus/train.
Scottsdale subsidizes it's mass transit about $20 per ride because so few people ride it. That's more than it would cost for taxis.
Nobody here is in a mood to expand such nonsense.
Borrow more money
Raise the sales tax to pay for roads
Spend the Rainy Day Fund on roads
Toll Roads
All of the above
Was all I could find online. I thought the same thing. Oh well.
Scary newspaper title to get readers. The article talks about several different proposals, only one of which involves tolls, and none of which are likely to happen.
Here's a good sentence.
Even Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, who said he’s not a big fan of borrowing at all, said [borrowing] may make sense. “What you would be doing is building the freeways sooner while the construction costs are still a lot less expensive than they would be 15 years down the road,” he said. “It may offset the (additional borrowing) costs or even save you money.”
What he left out is that having good roads brings more development, which offsets even more borrowing cost. We build good roads out here, and paying for them over time makes good sense.
Whether borrowing is done by Cintra, or by the state, the citizens will still pay. Obviously not paying for profit to Cintra, means the citizens will pay less for a public road. There is no free lunch, and construction costs for either a free road or toll would be equivalent.
Next time, try finding an article about Arizona that actually talks about building toll roads, not just one idiot legislator who's swallowed your bunk.
Of course, but the question is, which citizen will pay?
User pays or non-user pays?
Every citizen is a highway user. If you eat, then you're a highway user. If you work, then you're a highway user. Anything and everything in the entire economy is significantly affected by highways or the lack thereof.
Roads = economy.
No roads = no economy = people starve.
Likely the most fair way to pay for roads would be a per person flat rate tax for every citizen. Lacking that, a fuel tax is most fair.
If Texas doesn't have enough roads, then raise the fuel tax and use it for roads until there are enough.
If Texas politicians mismanage the roads, then elect others.
The least fair way to pay for roads is to give a private company exclusive rights between certain places, and sign contracts limiting what the people of the state can do on their free roads, and then levy fuel taxes on the toll way users ostensibly "for roads" meaning they're paying twice.
If they are anything like Pennsylvania, they collect taxes and tolls for the "transportation" fund, but prefer to use it for inner city buses, mass transit in the biggest city in the state, and bike / hike trails in the rest of the state...
Raising the fuel tax.
The pols know that there is wide and deep opposition to gas tax increases. It is that way everywhere. Recall the polling data from the other thread where only 17% were in favor of raising the gas tax.
I doubt that the AZ taxpayer is going to be fooled by raising the sales tax in lieu of the gas tax either.
So what it really boils down to, is AZ going to a use tolls or borrow more money on a longer term with even more interest.
You wish. The article in question offered several options, toll roads being favored by only one idiot legislator.
The fact is that private companies don't keep billions of dollars in cash lying around. They would have to borrow it too, and at probably higher rates than the state would pay. Again, the citizens get screwed as those higher rates (with profit) get passed down.
If Cintra will be regulated as many private utilities are, then they will have an incentive to waste money and cost the citizens even more. If they are allowed to charge according to their expenses, then they will discover many ways to spend money, knowing that the more they spend, the more they make.
So lets count the ways citizens get screwed with tolls:
1) double pay with gas taxes "for roads" plus tolls.
2) reduced economic development along toll roads because they always have fewer on/off ramps, and the reluctance of people to pay tolls (see (1)) resulting in less travel.
3) higher cost of money borrowed to build the roads passed on to citizens.
4) cost to adminster toll collections, passed on to citizens.
5) profit for the corporation.
6) free roads not maintained, or not built, because of non-compete clauses.
Recall the polling data from the other thread where only 17% were in favor of raising the gas tax.
I believe that one like I believe the dollar forty extra gas taxes you previously claimed would be required to build freeways instead of toll roads. Texicans may talk a little slow, but they're not that dumb.
I realize there are a lot of itinerants in AZ who prefer borrowing.
It's not on the list because the primary option under consideration is extending the term of bonds.
I realize there are a lot of itinerants in AZ who prefer borrowing.
Because that's the intelligent way to grow anything, whether a business or an economy. Why do you think Arizona is the fastest growing state in the country?
You missed the point entirely that borrowing and building roads now would be cheaper even with interest payments. Because waiting until the land is developed and *then* trying to build roads is far more expensive. And you get inferior roads by waiting too, because there are always exceptions to what you can buy in the right-of-way, and the routing suffers.
Hard to argue with that.
Able to drive where and when I want, without significant traffic, and with no tolls. That's why Arizona is a better place to live.
That's a joke
The thing that always amazed me about Phoenix traffic was the unspoken/unwritten rule about how many cars could turn left on a yellow light.
I've lived in Ft. Worth, Dallas and Houston and know first hand what I'm missing. And friends who still live there say it hasn't changed since I left.
Next time you're sitting in a traffic jam on the loop, just think about "high tax" Arizona.
If AZ will dance to the tune of the lenders, they can refinance their road debt and get another 400 mil, but 400 mil doesn't go very far. There is still the 450 mil crisis fund to be tapped.
Believe it or not, that's the good news.
The bad news is that Nappy says only those willing to participate in a "smart growth" plan would get any money.
Napolitano proposed the linkage during her State of the State address, the fifth of her career, to Republican-dominated senators and representatives
I fail to see the doom in the article. It must be in your imagination. So what if they refinance the bonds. gaining 400 million bucks is still gaining 400 million bucks.
As for the "smart growth", see the paragraph above about the republican dominated legislature. It ain't likely to happen.
I'll think of you tonight as I'm on my commute at 60mph in the middle of town.
As they chant during most OU-Texas games. "Poor Texxxxaas ... Poor Texxxxaas".
This is the one moron legislator pushing toll roads because his district way out in the desert won't have them.
“I wouldn't think that the Highway 95 realignment would qualify for something that would work as a toll road,” Gould said.
And about a toll bridge (proposal where Californians would pay more money than locals):
“If the people don't believe it and they're afraid the toll would stay they (can) shoot down the proposal,” he said. “It's a democratic society.
Doesn't sound like anyone out here is particularly hot to screw up the way Texas is, except this one fool legislator.
By the way, let's deal with bunk you're passing about Arizona being a "high tax" state. Here's a table showing effective state and local taxes by state. Arizona ranks in the bottom half at #32, with %10.1 percent effective rate. Texas ranks at #44 with %9.4 percent.
If the premium for not getting screwed with gas taxes on private toll roads, and not dealing with the bad traffic of Texas is only %0.7 percent tax, then I'll take the better quality of life here.
Think about me the next time you're stuck in traffic on I-35.
"because his district way out in the desert"
Which is exactly what I have been saying.
They don't want to pay for roads that they won't be using.
If you live in Midland TX, you are 300 miles from a city that wants a rise in the gas tax to build the roads that city needs.
Considering where TTC 35 and TTC 69 will be located, residents in the adjoining areas of OK, AR, and LA will have more use of those roads and/or the better roads to be constructed in Houston and Dallas, than those living in west Texas.
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