Online toll roads

The Houston Chronicle ^ | November 14, 2014 | The Houston Chronicle

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Internet old-timers - those of us over age 25 - remember a time when the web was called the Information Superhighway. The debate over net neutrality has us thinking about another sort of highway: the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The TTC, a proposed 4,000-mile toll road, rail and utility project, died a death of a thousand cuts in 2010. First proposed as a much-needed infrastructure investment, the well-intentioned project grew into a monstrosity of politically connected contractors, private property concerns and conspiracy theories. The biggest blow to TTC was statewide opposition to granting Spanish-owned developer Cintra a 50-year, multibillion-dollar deal to control and collect tolls on a concrete corridor bisecting the very heart of Texas. The plan even proposed turning over to Cintra land seized by eminent domain, where the company could franchize roadside amenities like hotels and rest stops to supplement its collected fees.

This degree of private control over infrastructure raised the spectre of a highway built more to benefit contractors than Texas communities. The toll road could bypass towns and exits could be designed to feed contractor-owned fast food joints instead of local restaurants.

There is a way to run public-private partnerships, but the TTC essentially allowed private contractors to put a hand on the wheel. It was too much, and the people rose up to shut it down.

Texans may have to rise up again, as telecommunication companies try to end a long-held policy of net neutrality so they can manipulate how people navigate the Information Superhighway. Like Cintra and the TTC, telecommunication companies are trying to control the speed, stops, entrances and exits to the Internet, all while collecting their tolls.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Internet Trans-Texas Corridor PING!

(Bet you thought this wouldn’t come up again.)

[PATRIOT1876]

We may need to get some techno-savvy patriots to brew up a new Internet so that we don’t have to deal with the vile government scum trying to control it in a Socialist fashion.

If all else fails, we could also all get ham radios.

[lentulusgracchus]

Liars.

The lavender-dog DemonRats on the Chronicle's board are doing stupid pet tricks to create a lie, a fair-seeming simulacrum that deceives and misleads.

The argument is from the TTC experience (tip: TTC ain't dead ... it's just gone into hiding) and is crafted to appeal to conservatives; but the real objective of "neutrality" Obama's way isn't a fair show, it's government control (read: Democrat Party control) of the Net, and new taxes on same being fed into the insatiable maw of 'Rat Party Government (but I repeat myself).

A wise old head once argued that a new tax is many times more odious than an increase in an existing one; because the new tax will spell open season on the voters, and politicians will rush back to the well rejoicing, again and again, to raise the new tax again, and again, and still yet again, and reap their full, bulging harvest of voter credulity and ingenuousness.

[Rodamala]

I recently make the BIG TIME MISTAKE of taking the “Pay by Mail” Toll road south out of DFW airport to get to I-20... then taking Route 49 (another “Pay by mail” tollroad) south into Tyler.

It’s all fine and good if the plate on the car is your plate, but I had a rental car... and it is officially a nightmare to pay some $1.65 toll... with administrative fees winding up costing me a yet to be determined amout that I think will be like $30.

Anyways... not that this has anything to do with anything... but whatever they do down there, this business of toll roads with no toll takers is LUDICROUS. I don’t care if they did it to the Golden Gate Bridge... the money on the cameras and supporting all that crap is MORE than just paying a toll taker $27.50/hr.

[shadeaud]

That death toll road ( death due to cars/trucks hitting wild boars that are all over it) isn't fairing too well. Most trucks are still on I-35 from Laredo to Austin which makes traffic a clustersmuck in San Antonio and Austin. The road itself isn't making any money and I think the state has agreed to pick up any loses the investors realize. We beat another project here in S.A. and the state punished the travelers by creating no turn areas along with limited U turn lanes as well as adding non synchronized traffic lights which really adds to the nightmare.

[xzins]

We need to kill crony capitalism. It is fascism, simply another form of socialism. That’s why the internet being run by the government is a joke. It’s also a joke if it’s controlled by a supposed free market when it actually is the crony corporatists who are the ones in control of that same internet.

Either way the fascists win.

[basil]

I always take the back roads when traveling in TX. There’s some pretty country to be seen, and there’s not the frenzy that the more traveled roads have.

Being retired does have its benefits—LOL!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[relictele]

First proposed as a much-needed infrastructure investment, the well-intentioned project

Liberals spend so much time admiring themselves in the mirror they can't see the rest of the room laughing at their conceit.

[kidd]

I recently had business in Bay City. I took a lot of backroads.

Texas has a 70 mph speed limit on some state roads.

I’m jealous.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The lavender-dog DemonRats

Are you saying that they're all gay?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Are you speaking about 281?

[shadeaud]

yes and it keeps on sucking