Posted on 12/04/2017 7:41:39 AM PST by EdnaMode
Its all about control...people need to wake up...flood the road with cars and just gum it up...the state police hate the duty to monitor the I-66 HOV rule breakers....ha!...especially in bad weather.
I retireD 6 months ago after having to deal with this HOV nonsense for 12 years....NOVA can GFI....LOL
“I don’t think too many of these commuters are lower income type office workers. They are almost all government drones”
And these NOVA jagoffs are responsible for VA going democrat. Screw ‘em.
People need to wake up and MOVE.
There is a maximum viable carrying capacity for an area. There are only so many roads with so many lanes. At some point each individual has to decide whether to stay and put up with the congestion and/or fallible attempts at reducing it, or to move somewhere that there aren’t so many cars trying to cram thru limited transportation resources.
What’s to fix? Too many people using too few roads, with little room for further expansion. Most of what happens in DC can be done remotely.
(Wrapping up my first full year of 100% telecommuting and loving it.)
I’d still like to see people jam the road up so it becomes a parking lot...turn their motors off and then work from the car on their I-pad or phone....ha.....
About my thoughts.
I live in Maryland and get absolutely sickened by all the drones who “work” for the government.
I used to volunteer with a group that had several federal workers who were complaining about the sequester.
These were actual productive government scientists and such whose work I support and is important, but I had no sympathy for them getting a day off once in a while.
I reminded them why I now live in Maryland. I lost my career level job in Michigan and found another in my field in Maryland, went six months without a paycheck, lived apart form my family for eight months, moved them away from family and friends etc. Like I said, zero sympathy. Welcome to the real world.
It’s been pretty good though. God has blessed me with a good job. One of my kids had a lifelong dream of working at NASA. He found a small university where he’ll soon graduate as an aerospace engineer and already is working at NASA. We never would have found this had we not moved.
(In typical engineer fashion, he’s figured out that he can get D’s in the rest of his classes and still graduate)
I love voluntary taxes. You should, too.
Of course, you could increase taxes for all non-users and let the rich ride for free, as you appear to desire. Frankly, your attitude is sick.
It really bugs me to see these express lanes that drivers have to pay extra to drive on. Everyone’s taxes paid for them and all lanes should be available to all taxpayers.
There are those here who support toll roads. I am against them.
Imagine the huge bills these people are getting plus paying high gas taxes and all other taxes while the politicians get a pass along with a free taxpayer car, gas, maintenance etc etc.
If you do this after a hurricane or flood or earthquake it's called price gouging and you get arrested. You have to have the governor's approval to steal.
This system is being implemented on I64 and the tunnels in the Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia areas soon but you have to have a special EZ pass transponder to allow for the "Dynamic" pricing to rob you.
Price gouging is just fine when the government does it. I don’t see any logical difference in what they’re doing and a gas station raising the price of gas in an emergency.
Train station upgrades and bike paths.
What if you are from out of town, and don’t have an EZ pass transponder?
These are just the EZPass lanes. The normal lanes of I-66 are still free but good luck with the traffic during the rush hours, which last most of the day.
This can be very tough on lower income type office workers. If your take home pay is $60 a day, and you end up paying a third of that just driving to and from work? That’s going to add up.
Most of the workers, government and civilian alike, are paid well more than $60/day as the cost of living in the DC area is horrendous. I have been here since 1992 and I don't think I have ever seen a government position less than a GS-7, which will give you about $35K/year or about $19.50/hour. Contractors and civilian workers mostly make as much or more but they all move way out to try to afford a home. Move out to Front Royal and you can have a nice home for less per month than some crappy apartment near DC.
Why are they tolling these roads? Where is the money going?
These roads are owned and managed by a private firm (Transurban, I think) and is run for a profit. The problem is a lot of our taxes were also used to build the lanes.
Aren’t they just going to see more congestion on adjacent free roads?
The tolls and electronic sensors have pushed the violators off the HOT lanes on to the free lanes. I refuse to commute anymore so I don't know how much this has increased the volume of traffic on the free lanes. My wife commutes 130 miles round trip each day in a van pool so I'll ask her. She can look over and get a gauge on how much extra traffic there is on the free lanes.
Outrageous traffic, fees, fines and camera tickets are another horrid aspect of the growth of DC government over the past several decades. The District is simply overburdened with workers, residents and vehicles. The streets pattern inside the city limits was purposely designed to foil the advance of ground troops in the 18th century, and does a remarkably good job with cars, trucks and buses as well. The web of highways around the area has become too complex for any driver without an advanced GPS system, even for people who have always lived around DC. One split-second mistaken turn can cost you a twenty-mile detour, many dollars in tolls and an hour or more in lost time.
Because they have hit capacity mass and there is no place to go except to force people to carpool or avoid rush hour if they are only shopping, not working. The real solution is to cut the size of government drastically.
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