Posted on 12/07/2020 3:36:55 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
“Toll free in ’73.” That was the campaign slogan over five decades ago that promised tolls on Illinois interstates would be a temporary revenue sources. Today, the tolls are higher and the tollway authority is more permanent than ever.
Lawmakers promised tolls would help fund 186 miles of interstate construction and would be removed when the roads were paid off. After that, highway maintenance would be funded by the gas tax. In 1968, the General Assembly made the Illinois Toll Highway Authority permanent.
What started at just 10 cents at the exits and 25 cents at the plazas has grown to cost drivers $1.50 for each I-Pass scan. Since 2009, the Illinois Tollway has hiked toll fares four times.
It’s also become an easy way to employ the politically connected and hand out patronage jobs. Governors since the 1980’s have had tollway scandals. Political hires and contracts with friends of politicians from both sides of the aisle have been common at the authority.
So has unwarranted growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at illinoispolicy.org ...
“...The original tax rate was one percent. Then two percent. Then it went upwards throughout the 20th century....”
And look where the greedy bassturds got it up to now...and wanting more!!!
They won’t be satisfied until they take it ALL, and the “unwashed masses” are left to grovel at their feet begging for a breadcrumb.
Whoever came up with the idea of taxing the fruits of a person’s labor and their property has a very special place in hell.
I’ve always wondered about tolls. I mean, don’t state taxes supposedly partly go for the upkeeep of the roads? Also, weren’t the state lotteries also to do the same? Why then the need for tolls?
The New York Thruway tolls were only supposed to be temporary too. Now they’ve removed all the toll booths, and the jobs that went with them, and installed cameras for EZ Pass, or being billed directly. My niece got a bill for a toll charge, for a trip she never took. It was a small amount of money, but if they can’t even properly read the pictures they take, how many other people will be getting billed for thruway travel they never took?
The sales pitch for tolls in a location like Chicago was that you were going to mostly tax traffic driving through and generate revenue from out of state.
Obviously a dubious argument.
A great example of gummint that nobody needs, invites graft and increases costs for the little guy, yet the voters allow it, so who am I to say?
Politicians on Two toll projects in Georgia, one connecting St. Simons Island to the mainland and one in Fulton County that built GA 400 original stretch, tried to extend the tolls once the projects were paid. they lost in court. Today in Georgia we would be stuck with the tolls permanently.
The toll roads in Houston all have three lane wide service roads that aren’t tolled. Lots of people just avoid the toll roads.
They did the same thing in Florida.
“A toll agency promising to end the tolls is like ...”
I remember when the Golden Gate Bridge loans were paid off. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think tolls were even reduced.
Wait until they require GPS devices that report your mileage so that they can charge you for all the driving you do, not just what you do on the tollroads.
Illinois is by far the most corrupt state in the union.
Meanwhile, some cities are telling private toll companies to eff-off (unfortunately, not in the US):
https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/12/7/valenzuela-nlex-toll-booth-business-permit-suspended.html
The Victory Tax was supposed to be Temporary also, but we still have Mandatory witholding
Political promises mean nada, zip, nothing anywhere, especially Illinois.
Meanwhile, the Prickster family is the most wealthy in Illinois.
As I recall, the original income tax was a progressive tax that started at 1% for incomes that would already represent great wealth today, then went up point by point to 7% at the top.
I understand that the Astoria, Oregon bridge had its tolls removed some time ago.
Yep. If he wants “the rich” to pay their “fair share” so badly, why not lead by example and donate some of his billions to pay for underfunded government programs?
Yes. I lived 1/2 mile from the Illinois Tollway when it was built. I was about 10. The tollroad will outlive me. That said, it is very well maintained.
I lived near a one of the toll stops. One thing I remember after it was built was laying in bed on summer nights and listening in the dark to the cars that had stopped as they began to accelerate and wind through the gears, wondering where they were going in the middle of the night.
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