Pictures in original.
During the 34 years of tolls, the turnpike authority collected $550 million from drivers. One of the biggest expenses - $233 million - occurred while tearing down the toll booths and plazas.
I know with inflation, it can be hard to compare amounts paid over a period of decades with today’s buying power of the dollar.
But still, how much did the toll collections really benefit people in Virginia, if it cost so much to end the practice of toll collections?
And the tolls were collected by people, I assume, toll collectors in booths, as this was before we saw EZ Pass type systems in place to collect tolls on toll roads.
So were people paying the toll just to pay the salary of the person who collected the toll???? Was it like a racket in that regard, as opposed to collecting money to fund significant road repair??
And don’t we already pay gas taxes for road repair and maintenance???
I remember the crazy log jams at the toll booths on that stretch of I95. Hard to believe they have been gone for such a long time.
Tolls were taken off the old Dallas - Fort Worth Turnpike, but I’m sure the original Dallas North Tollway has paid for itself many times over. They keep extending it. (What was intended to get the rich folks to work downtown now has frontage roads reaching half way to the Oklahoma line).