Posted on 05/24/2016 10:02:41 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) A Texas Department of Transportation official said the state would need $38 billion to pay off debt linked to dozens of toll roads and make the highways free to drivers.
Executive director James Bass updated a Texas House panel in Austin. The 2015 Legislature ordered TxDOT to report on the status of Texas toll roads. A final report is due in September.
(Excerpt) Read more at constructionequipmentguide.com ...
“Of course they’re still up, it’s a revenue source.”
Actually ‘revenue engine’ is the term used by the toll road community. Beltway 8 tolls are now being used for street work in Houston. The dirty little secret about highways is that they are VERY CHEAP to build and operate - so if there’s a big market for their use, they make HUGE BUCKS, which is why you see the sweetheart deals between governments and toll road companies.
” After all, what is more fair than having the people who use the roads be the people who pay for the roads.”
Who says that all of the money paid in tolls is used to operate and pay off the roads? In the case of Pennsylvania, after decades of complaining, the state had federal approval to set up toll booths on I-80 and was ready to go. But there was ONE CONDITION, the revenue could only be used for that highway. The state intended for most of the revenue for the transit systems in Phili and Pittsburgh...but with that stipulation, they didn’t even bother setting up the booths - because, once again, HIGHWAYS ARE CHEAP to operate, especially if they already exist.
Only 2 states, Kentucky and Connecticut, ever eliminated tolls from their toll roads. Both states did not use the tolls for projects other than the revenue bonds used to finance their construction.
That is because corrupt officials kept borrowing from the receipts.
The rino judge in Houston scoffed at notion of ever making them free as per the original paperwork saying “he” never agreed to it (it predated his oversight).
I think that same rino is now working on the “private” high speed train between Houston and Dallas (and they want public funding to take it into downtown).
Don’t know if he was part of rino Rick Prry’s plot to sell off the tollroads to a private company in Spain with provisions NOT to build free access roads that would compete with the toll road.
Houston’s double dipping with their speeding ticket revenue on toll roads.
The tickets are not about safety.
And if our former illustrious governor Perry would have gotten his way we would have 7,000 miles of these abominations running all over our state, owned and operated by some Spanish corporation.
And Kentucky is bringing them back, to pay for the two new bridges across the Ohio River in the Louisville Metro area.
Currently, there are more than 22 million registered vehicles in Texas. The division
collects more than $4.5 billion in registration fees, title fees, and motor vehicle
sales tax, the majority of which is deposited into the State Highway Fund to build and
maintain Texas’ highways, roads and bridges.
Not completely true, VA used to have tolls on 95, that are long gone, but they were there for a long long time.
Same for the Illinois Tollway - “In 2004, ISTHA made a strategic decision to expand and improve the tollway system instead of converting the roads to freeways.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_State_Toll_Highway_Authority
The Bangles must be rich off of all the tolls.
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