If the toll is used to only pay for a road, without the social engineering aspects and the toll disappears after the road is paid for I have no issue.
I realize those three “If’s”is like saying “If I was Superman I could fly.”
Toll roads make sense on one condition—any politician who votes for any measure to use the funds for anything but road construction and ongoing maintenance must be executed on the House or Senate floor—immediately.
Ditto for any attempt to circumvent this by delegating the responsibility to a Board or Committee of any kind.
Otherwise, fuggedaboutit.
It took the better part of a decade and he failure of a metro Atlanta TSPLOST vote before the governor removed the tollbooths from GA400. The road was built with the promise that tolls would be removed when they paid for the road. The road had been paid for, for some time. Long enough to also create a more than adequate fund for perpetual maintenance, had anyone done such a thing.
I was glad it finally turned out like it did, that people had long enough memories to hold elected officials’ feet to the fire on the issue.
The first time I drove to PA on the really bad roll roads I thought.. who in the world trusted someone to do what they said. Paying for the same stretch of pavement daily is like bringing your empty milk jug back to the store and paying for another gallon.
I never dreamed the south would do stupidly embrace that concept.
They will never use your taxpayer dollar as they said, so stop trusting them to do so.
“If the toll is used to only pay for a road, without the social engineering aspects and the toll disappears after the road is paid for I have no issue...I realize those three “If’s”is like saying “If I was Superman I could fly.””
Correct. They’re used as piggy banks for the simple reason that highways are VERY CHEAP to build (on a per vehicle-mile basis) relative to their value to drivers. So, while, it may only cost 2 or 3 cents per vehicle-mile to build a highway, people who benefit from that highway will pay 10 to 20 cents per vehicle-mile (and much more if the road is a virtual monopoly through a congested area). And guess which of the two costs government chooses to charge their people?
So you have Pennsylvania sending something like $500M per year of toll money to subway systems in Phili and Pitt, rather than lowering toll rates, and no doubt just about every other expensive toll road doing similar, but doing a better job of keeping it out of public view.
Bottom line - once you give them an inch, they’ll take whatever they can get and pay off their ‘friends’ with it.
“and the toll disappears after the road is paid for I have no issue.”
That’s always the rub.
L