Posted on 08/17/2016 5:02:55 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
People at work were talking about getting to work and back home the other day. In the conversation, they mentioned the toll roads in Austin, Texas and the cost thereof. I was in shock. The amount per month spent on toll roads for people ranged from $300-600 per MONTH. Then it hit me!
The poor can not afford to pay those charges. So, the regular roads in Austin are in bumper-to-bumper traffic overload. The well-to-do go to and fro with great convenience while the lower classes suffer pretty badly with some having a 2-hour trip EACH WAY from home to work. This for some reason smacks of discrimination. I'm not big on playing the discrimination card, but it seems that people are taxed to death over everything, including roads, and then have to pay an exorbitant price AGAIN to be able to get to work to make some money to pay the taxes. Something just doesn't seem right about the whole thing.
There is no inequality that can’t be fixed by wealth redistribution. /sarcasm
Dallas-Ft Worth toll road (now I-30) back in the 70’s was supposed to stop collecting tolls after they recouped the money (decades to get the money recouped), didn’t happen.
Apparently most all people that knew had retired and/or left.
Went to court and the toll road administration lost, so just because they keep charging when the terms and conditions of the contract were ignored, doesn’t mean it’s over.
And run by the most efficient thing ever invented. . .a bureaucracy.
It’s ok. It’s Austin. They voted for that.
I don’t get over to that side of El Paso too often. As soon as I-10 hits New Mexico, it drops to 75 all the way to the AZ border.
Good point.
The 85mph speed limit begins at the Kerr County line about 15 miles east of Kerrville and ends at the El Paso County 460 miles later, and about 35 miles east of El Paso itself.
And it’s also 85mph from where I-20 splits off from I-10 for about 40 miles almost to Odessa.
You are correct, and as you noted, even when the project is supposedly “private” there sure seems to be a lot of cronyism involved - like the deal you described to restrict competition.
“If fuel taxes were actually based on road wear caused, trucks should pay almost all the tax. As usual, anything politicians and government do is messed up.”
I have no doubt you are right about this.
Just in Austin?
No place else?
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