And yet Canada gets a nice tollway with a minimum of potholes and construction... wasn’t that the point? Even if paying more than they should for it? Illinois’ tollways were supposed to be free decades ago. And the doggone things are still plagued with destruction.
“And yet Canada gets a nice tollway with a minimum of potholes and construction... wasn’t that the point?”
Actually not. What happens is that the company borrows a boatload of money and then gives it to the provincial government for the right to run the highway and collect tolls. The government gets to play with that money (in the billions)...but then the tolls have to cover that debt (which is huge), the cost of the road (which actually is very small, once the cost of tolling is deducted), and make a profit. Bottom-line is that the drivers get nice roads, but they also have to pay billions for indigent health care in Toronto. It winds up being no different than raising the gasoline tax by $5 to $7 per gallon for those drivers, and giving all but 50 cents to the road.
“Illinois’ tollways were supposed to be free decades ago. And the doggone things are still plagued with destruction.”
I hear you on the first part, we were ‘promised’ our toll roads would become free once paid off here in Houston, so we approved them 25 years ago. Needless to say we kept borrowing against them to finance other crap. As for condition of the roads, you can probably pin that on Chicago Politics, but you would know better than me on that.