Posted on 01/12/2012 4:52:01 PM PST by dragonblustar
GIG HARBOR — Tacoma Narrows Bridge tolls were always going to increase. Bond payments were set up that way.
The questions are when and how much. Preliminary answers from a workshop Wednesday night are July 1 and a lot.
Department of Transportation experts kicked off the toll-raising process by updating the bridge's citizen advisory committee with the latest traffic and revenue numbers. They also provided four toll scenarios. In them, the electronic rate would jump from $2.75 to $4.25 or $4.50, the manual rate from $4 to $5.50 or $6, and the photo tolling rate from $5.50 to $7 or $7.50.
Toll payers have avoided an increase since 2008 through various means, and it's caught up to them.
Because of the recession, traffic has flattened out at 14 million transactions a year instead of the forecasted 16 million, meaning less money is coming in. Bond payments rise each of the first 17 years of the 30-year payment schedule. In December, tolls must start repaying sales taxes on construction — $5.7 million a year for 10 years — that were deferred for the first five years. A $5.3 million startup loan from the state's gas tax account also must be repaid.
Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/jan/12/narrows-bridge-tolls-poised-for-big-jump-in-july/#ixzz1jIJNq9L9
(Excerpt) Read more at kitsapsun.com ...
Didnt realise Bob McDonnell was also governor of WA
I will not be surprised to see it reach $10 at the rate things are going.
The toll on the Narrows is only when returning to the Tacoma side though, unlike the Seattle 520 floating bridge where they hit you both ways.
Nobody wanted the bridge esp. those living in Gig Harbor. Secondly the bridge was built using Korean steel. It also was supposed to be a mirror image of the original bridge. And finally it has not relieved traffic as it was supposed to. So the less people start using it the revenue is not there so they’ll raise the toll some more, fewer people will use it, etc.
Don't give them any ideas.....
Yeah, I can see that too. Its going to hit some people hard.
According to authorities, the tolls will finance a project to widen the Narrows Bridge!
Ping!
Wait until they decide to hit you both ways!
That’s mere ‘chump change’.....try NY’s Verrazano bridge toll extortion at $13.00 a pop.
But . . . will they jump with bungee cords or parachutes? Inquiring minds need to know!
Is there a surcharge for not having the bridge collapse in high wind while you’re crossing it?
I sure hope you IDIOTS that thought that the tolls would ONLY go for the expenses involved with building the bridge are finally GETTING IT.
Once government is permitted to set up a tolling structure on vehicles, they will TOLL THROUGH THE TEETH, many times more than the road (often fully paid off) costs. Why - because people will pay WHATEVER is charged, and IDIOT LIBERTARIANS will call the super-high tolls “market forces”.
In 2008, about 190,000 vehicles used the bridge per day on average.
As of December 2011, the one-way toll (paid westbound into Staten Island only) in cash is $13 per car or $5.50 per motorcycle. E-ZPass users with transponders issued by the New York E-ZPass Customer Service Center pay $9.60 per car or $4.18 per motorcycle; a five-axle truck pays $70, or $47.26 with NY E-ZPass. Holders of transponders issued elsewhere get no discount
I figure that to a be minimum of 80,000 tolls collected each day at $13+ or $1,040,000/day in toll collections.
“If you look at my post 14, you will notice that the Verrazano Bridge in NY alone sucks about 1/2 billion dollars a year out of the economy. If you added all the TBA and PA crossings into the mix, it is probably well over a billion dollars a year being redistributed in the NY metro area. “
Yea, you don’t have to tell me. Delaware has a 9 mile stretch of Interstate 95, and they collect something like 45 cents per mile on it. If tolls were limited to the cost of highways they would be something like 5 cents per mile (with half of that paying for the tolling system - LOL), at most. Here in Houston, they’re simply open about the fact that Harris County tolls now are used for “high-priority” county projects (i.e., general fund). At 15 cents per mile, they collect WAY MORE money than they ever needed for the highway, even before they paid it off.
It’s just a crying shame that something like half of the FReepers are fine with toll roads, under then DELUSION that the money is used just for that road.
The next step will be mandatory transponders in cars with GPS tracking. I know that Governor Perry has looked into that (but thankfully hasn’t proposed it yet), and that the Libertarians think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. The idea that some central authority can locate your vehicle anywhere in the world, charge you mileage fees based on where you drive, what you drive, when you drive, and maybe what you make, just doesn’t seem to raise an eyebrow with them...just as the laws in the early 1930s most likely didn’t bother the Jews that much.
I agree. What ticked me off was the ass sniffing liberals on T.V. saying it was a good idea to raise the costs.
“I agree. What ticked me off was the ass sniffing liberals on T.V. saying it was a good idea to raise the costs.”
I expect that from them - I’m just surprised they haven’t gotten much further in this Orwellian ‘utopia’. But I don’t conservatives to piss away their privacy and freedom in support of some kind of utopian ‘road management’.
Just like this, NOW people are just starting to figure out just what “Smart Meters” mean for their privacy and freedom...3 years after the Dems got it through in their ‘Stimulus’. At the time, the Dems were suprised that the Republicans rolled over so easy...so I guess when you have IDIOTS as Republican ‘leaders’ you get this crap.
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