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 ...
That looks like the Calcasieu River bridge near Lake Charles. DOTD is looking to replace it sometime in the near future.
No, not quite a win-win, but a win-win-win, in that you build the jails so that more corrupt politicians actually end up in jail, rather than getting a slap on the wrist and a fine, due to “overcrowding.”
I believe DOTD had plans to build a tolled loop around Baton Rouge. I have no idea what ultimately became of that.
However, some of these private toll roads did go under. And then a government (fed or state) would need to take over to ensure a continued route between the places served by the toll road.
So cut out all the greed and corruption in ALDOT and the state legisl00ture, end the project labor agreements, end the tax diversions to non-road projects, and AFTER ALL THAT, if the gas tax still needed to be raised, you would hear the screams from Muscle Shoals to Daphne.
And in those cases, the government often also continued to run them as turnpikes - or as we would say now, toll roads. Sometimes the government bought out the original owners, too.
Then too, there were turnpikes that made it through to the 1930s in private ownership.
Anyway - looked at historically, “free” highways are a very recent development in the US. More of our history had the majority of the highways being paid/toll than not.
Go look up the history of I-30 in Texas. The highway was needed, the government refused to fund it, it was built as a toll road instead and when it was paid for it was handed over to the government for use as an interstate highway.
From reading the article and doing research, this bridge project would be in addition to the existing free bridge.
The problem with “find another source or don’t build it” is that it doesn’t get built and you get 4+ hour ‘rush hours’ like in Los Angeles and other places that (for various reasons including this) didn’t build out their freeway systems like they should. And they only get worse, so that by the time you actually build the project it’s really too late and now you need to build two more.
Remember, the thing about a toll road is that *you don’t have to pay for it.* If you don’t want to pay for it, *don’t use it* - it’s just that simple.
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