Free Republic

Angela Dean spends at least $200 a month to cover after-school care for her 5-year-old son. Getting back and forth to work — and making sure she picks him up in time — costs another $200 just in tolls.“If I didn't take toll roads, my commute would be an hour-and-a-half or more depending on traffic,” Dean said. “I get off work at 5:30 p.m. and I have to pick my son up by 6:30 or pay crazy late fees. When I take the toll roads, I get there with about 15 minutes to spare.”The North Texas suburbanite uses the President...

All I could do was sigh when I saw a recent article discussing a new study that named the Interstate 95 corridor between Exit 133 and the Fairfax County Parkway as the worst traffic “hot spot” in the nation. The article was circulated around the Prince William County school where I teach. Every minute added onto my 34-mile round trip to work creates huge consequences for me. The trip used to take an ideal 45 minutes, but it has grown to a jaw-dropping 2½ hours — creating significant consequences for me and my children. I am not prone to “road...

Gov. Larry Hogan never met a highway project he didn’t like. He’s a 1950s type of politician – solve all the state’s transportation gridlock and congestion by paving the countryside with lanes of new concrete.He’s got a $9 billion plan that is a lollapalooza: Let construction giants build and pay for toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and the busy I-270 corridor from the beltway to Frederick – 70 miles of exclusive Lexus lanes – and let those companies reap the toll rewards so they can recoup a staggering $7.6 billion investment (the actual cost is likely to be substantially...

Last Thursday, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan unveiled a $9 billion project to widen three of the state’s most heavily trafficked highways: I-270, I-495—also known as the Capital Beltway—and MD-295, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. What the governor’s office dubbed the Traffic Relief Plan involves constructing two express toll lanes each way—or four total toll lanes—to all three highways. Widening the Capital Beltway and the section of I-270 connecting the growing commuter-city of Frederick to Washington, D.C., would cost an estimated $7.6 billion, which the state expects to be financed via public-private partnerships: Private companies would build and maintain the new toll lanes,...

HOUSTON -- Good news for drivers heading into Monday morning: Sam Houston Tollway's main lanes are now fully open in both directions. That means tens of thousands of commuters can now get back to their regular routes. But with the good news comes some bad news: Harris County Tolls will start up again Tuesday at 4 a.m. on all toll roads except for the section of Sam Houston Tollway between Highway 59 and Highway 290. Tolls will be waived because some feeder roads are still closed. Fort Bend County Tolls resume Monday. The toll way opening is a few days...

LAKE MEAD (FOX5) - A section of Interstate 11 opened Wednesday between the 95 and Railroad Pass Casino. But some drivers said they are having a hard time navigating it, thanks to a glitch from GPS technology. When a 2.5 mile stretch of I-11 opened, Apple and Google maps didn't register it. Instead, it caused a major glitch, and instead of routing people down the 95 toward Boulder City and Arizona, drivers were being redirected all the way through Lake Mead National Park. The route takes more time and also comes with a $20 toll. "I pulled over with all...

After years of angst over whether to extend Route 53 north into Lake County, the Illinois tollway moved with dizzying speed last week approving a $25 million study of the project. But while the board's vote took seconds, there were hours of fraught testimony from environmentalists fearful of pollution, residents worried about losing their homes, commuters sick of sitting in traffic and construction industry representatives lobbying for jobs. Here are five take-aways from a momentous week: 1. Promising to pay for the extension could be a game-changer. Unlike his predecessors, Chairman Bob Schillerstrom pledged that if Route 53 is extended,...

In 1994, the Florida Legislature and the Miami-Dade County Commission adopted legislation creating the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, also known as MDX, in an effort to maintain toll dollars in Miami-Dade to improve the quality of life of county residents. Fast forward 23 years — Miami-Dade’s population has grown to more than 2.6 million residents and out-of-town visitation has nearly doubled; thus, increasing the use of our roadways by both residents and visitors. This combination equals only one thing — ever growing traffic. The Florida Department of Transportation, Florida’s Turnpike, MDX, and Miami-Dade County have spent billions on expanding the Palmetto...

For some, the possibility of tolls on Interstate 70 across Indiana is going over like a flat tire. But Republican lawmakers who control the legislature say they could help fund new driving lanes and only those who use the road would pay for them. “I think it’s totally unfair,” said Judy Anderson, president of the Vigo County Board of Commissioners. “I don’t think we would be supportive at all.” Pending legislation would let the governor place toll lanes on interstates and bridges, subject to federal approval. Many Vigo County residents commute to jobs in Indianapolis and a large number of...

Every once in a while — and perhaps especially now, if we’re really going to talk about a trillion-dollar infrastructure program — we need to revisit the basics: “This is probably a column-length question, but what are the solutions to traffic congestion in the D.C. region?” That reasonable question came in during the midst of last Monday’s online discussion about whether traffic conditions would be improved if everyone just went faster. (In fact, we would not all be better off if you’d just go as fast as the driver behind you wants.) What are we really hoping to achieve when...

MERCER ISLAND, Wash. - The city of Mercer Island plans to sue Sound Transit and the State Department of Transportation over I-90 access, which could freeze the East Light construction project set to begin in June. The City Council unanimously approved the legal action Monday during a packed council meeting. They plan to sue both agencies and seek a moratorium on the construction as they search for short-term solutions to their traffic concerns. In response to the authorized legal action, Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff released a statement calling the decision “highly regrettable.” “While Sound Transit remains ready to reach...

In July Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe stood on the platform of a train station in Alexandria to announce that the U.S. Department of Transportation had granted $165 million for the Atlantic Gateway project.While this is a multimodal project featuring rail, bus, and highway improvements, it was clearly the latter that most enthused the governor. At one point during his remarks, he declared that because of the road projects, “Today, the congestion is going to end!”The primary focus of the highway improvements will be an extension of the HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes on I-95 and I-395. The only other speaker...

<p>Tweefie Millspaugh has a relatively short commute from her home in North Baltimore's Abell neighborhood to her job at a downtown law firm. Without traffic, she says, it takes about 15 minutes.</p> <p>But lately, the 54-year-old has found herself yelling fruitlessly in the driver's seat as she sits for 45 minutes on streets jammed by road closures across the city's center. After work, she waits again in a crawling line before finally inching out of her parking garage and into the gridlock.</p>

Highway express lanes provide a faster trip for carpoolers, people who drive low-emission cars, and solo travelers who are willing to pay more.ThatÂ’s the idea, anyway.But as Americans drive more miles than ever before, express lanes are facing a challenge: they are too popular. So many drivers of all kinds are using the lanes that it is increasingly difficult for transportation officials to keep them speedy.For solo drivers, the tolls in express lanes typically vary based on demand. In some places, drivers pay more during peak travel times, and in others prices go up as more cars enter the lane....

TOLEDO (13abc Action News) - Self-driving cars are getting closer to becoming a reality in America. Testing is underway in a few places around the country and if you travel the Ohio Turnpike, you'll soon be sharing the road with them. We spoke with drivers and the head of the Ohio Turnpike Commission about the testing. The autonomous vehicles could be on the turnpike by the end of the year. The Ohio Turnpike will be turned into a test track of sorts for the emerging technology. Randy Cole is the Executive Director of the Turnpike Commission, "It's 241 miles of...

Is it possible that a toll road could price itself right out of its market? That's essentially what the Pennsylvania Turnpike is prescribing for itself. Last week the Turnpike Commission informed us that tolls will go up a ninth consecutive year in 2017 — and stay on a steadily upward trajectory until 2044. And of course, there's no guarantee after that. By then, we can only hope, the turnpike will have morphed into a giant solar-powered car-train — for self-driving cars, of course. "Unsustainable" is an overused word these days, but it applies to the toll road's future. The turnpike...

The Ontario lottery corporation recently started advertising its newest scratch-and-win lottery: tickets cost $30 (the highest price among its lotteries), and the top prize is a cool $2.5 million. Now, if you want an indication of how bad traffic is in the GTA, consider that Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca announced a lottery of his own on Thursday: tickets cost $180 each, though you only pay if you win. The prize? One of 1,000 permits to drive in an uncongested highway lane for 16 kilometres between Burlington and Oakville. The ad copy writes itself: Imagine the freedom of cruising at...

MIAMI - Drivers throughout South Florida have said no matter where their daily commute takes them, they feel they're spending more money, more often on tolls. Local 10 News spoke to several drivers who said the tolls are another expense and don't necessarily help them reach their destination any faster. "Three hundred to four hundred (dollars) a month," Maribel Masvidal estimated she spends commuting from Homestead to her job in South Miami. "A lot of money that could be used on other things for my family." Masvidal said that commute can take her up to two hours one way on...

It’s no surprise that the commuters and commercial truck-drivers who regularly slog across the George Washington Bridge are not happy with the news: Starting Sunday, auto motorists using cash will have to pay $15 to cross, a trip that until recently cost half that. They are the drivers from North Jersey and beyond who help make it the world’s busiest motor-vehicle bridge. And they are the same drivers who now must pay one of the most expensive tolls in the country. On Saturday afternoon, motorists were given a chance to vent, and they were more than willing to step up....

TORONTO - The Ontario government has been working on plans for high occupancy toll lanes on three Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area highways since 2013, but has kept most of the details secret. When the NDP filed a Freedom of Information request in early 2014 for detailed information on the work, which includes traffic models, most of the documents were to be blacked out or not released at all, according to a report obtained by the Toronto Sun. Ministry of Transportation staff prepared the note to give senior bureaucrats and the minister’s office a heads-up about the NDP’s “contentious” request....