Posted on 05/11/2019 7:14:46 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Opposition to tolling the future Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and the Wallace Tunnel dominated the public comments during Tuesday’s hearing into the massive $2.1 billion project.
From local politicians to business owners, the message to the Alabama Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration was clear: A $3 to $6 toll will place enormous burdens on drivers and workers in Mobile and Baldwin counties, and it won’t fly with the rest of the public either.
“It’s a huge expense,” said Roger Nelson of Daphne, who commutes daily to work to downtown Mobile. “It will be passed on.”
Said Joseph Thompson of Spanish Fort: “It seems like we’re on the cusp of having a bridge paid for disproportionately out of our own expense.”
Added David Dueitt of Daphne: “I don’t think we should do that to our children. We shouldn’t be charging our children for what we don’t have the guts to do.”
ALDOT officials responded by saying that without the tolls, the project cannot be paid for. And without the project, the I-10 congestion and Wallace Tunnel bottlenecks – already the twin sources of miles-long, bumper-to-bumper ordeals on workday afternoons and summer weekends – will only worsen.
They also believe the tolling plan is equitable, and explain that tolls will be assessed through a segmented plan based on how much of the I-10 Bayway that a motorist travels.
Motorists who use the Bayway 20 or more times in a month will get a 15% discount, according to ALDOT.
(Excerpt) Read more at al.com ...
PING!
Pampered dipshits.
Bankhead Tunnel was toll for years and years and I-10 is one of the busiest interstates in the nation.
So they are going to throw a $9 toll on the existing free tunnel?
The new bridge and the Wallace Tunnel will be tolled. The other crossings will remain free.
A hundred years ago to be stopped and forced to pay cash to people who claimed to own the roads was called Highway Robbery.
Audit the gas taxes... you will have enough to build a tunnel every year for eternity. Of course you would have to build bigger prisons for politicians caught embezzling taxes. So it’s not quite a win win.
ALDOT needs to be audited.
First the BS Ponzi scheme of the gas tax for “road improvements”, now this.
Add the fact that the ALDOT commissioners give these sweetheart multi-million dollar resurfacing contracts to their cronies who in turn do shoddy work that has to be redone in as little as four years.
A section of AL-14 was just resurfaced with the wear surface being laid down 6 weeks ago, and it already has slippage cracks in it.
A hundred years ago being stopped and forced to pay cash to people who claimed to own the roads was called “using the turnpikes.” Go look at how American roads were built and paid for from Founding until the Interstate System was initiated. Most new roads were turnpikes which you had to pay a toll to use.
Literally turnpikes - the way was obstructed by an actual pike which would be turned away or lifted out of the way to allow access upon payment of fee.
No tolls was one of the reasons it was called a freeway system.
Every single DOT in every single state in the Union refuses to build ANYTHING with our taxes.
But they continue to collect them.
The money to pay for it could be collected, but then the tolls continue to be collected into perpetuity, with regular increases. They never stop.
Thanks for the proposed view of it. I like the concept of it. Should they current bridges be considered “free” and the tunnel toll is minimal, I can see charging users who insist on taking the new lanes.
The interstate is a busy, busy conduit for goods travelling to and from Florida to points west. Any disruption of thoroughfare is a major problem however the local commuters in Baldwin county need it too and therein lies the problem for ALDOT.
There used to be a long road below the bridge that had a great seafood restaurant but it was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. There was also a fantastic place in Daphne that was a family favorite which overlooked the Bay. It closed too.
They need to build a bypass for Baton Rouge. I would gladly pay a toll for a good alternative to that ancient parking-lot-in-the-sky bridge.
Fascinating historical trivia! Thanks
I use I-10 a lot between NOLA and FLA and there aren’t any tolls - even as they have been improving and widening for a while now....I-90 runs cross country up North and when one gets out of PA, with no toll, and into NY, it becomes toll and the road takes a marked turn for the worse at the same time...smooth driving in PA and dodging potholes in NY...
Ridiculous. Find another funding source or don’t build it. This is the major interstate that connects the southern edge of the nation from east to west, it’s stupid to put a toll bridge in the middle of it. Many people work in Mobile and live on the east side of the bay, you just added $100 a month to their commute. There’s a lot of out of state traffic on that interstate that won’t have transponders for fast pay that’ll get the bill in the mail which in my experience is an opportunity for a state sanctioned scam. I got a bill for $150 few years ago from a toll road in Texas I didn’t even remember being on. They claimed I didn’t pay the first bill which I’d never received. It ended up being a big shakedown and cost me $75. It felt like I was being shaken down by the mob. For this and other reasons I am wholesale against toll bridges and roads. I live in the south because I want to stay away from the money grabbing schemes that are so prevalent in the northeast, I don’t want them infesting us with this stuff.
There is a way around it, there’s the Africatown bridge a few miles north that I take a lot to avoid the tunnel. It’ll pick up a lot if traffic but is inconvenient for those just trying to get through Mobile on I-10.
In any case, there’s no way I want a toll bridge through there. The tolls never go away and they just fleece people in perpetuity.
I can resort to the old industrial route if it still exists.as a kid in a non air-conditioned 65 Impala we’d run to hwy. 43 then cross over the old bridge over the shipping channel.
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