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To: BobL

Private toll roads are being discussed here now. I don't think it will be done, but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed.


25 posted on 02/02/2005 7:35:44 PM PST by RetroWarrior ("We count it death to falter, not to die")
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To: RetroWarrior
Good luck Retro.

If you do the math, you find that tolls are an extremely inefficient way to collect money for highways - due to the vehicle and driver tracking system required, along with the overpaid toll collectors.

If you do what we're starting to do in Texas, which it looks like up there, then you have another problem. That problem is that the private company will DEMAND and GET franchise protection - essentially giving them a monopoly on the route. This even prevents publicly funded highways from being upgraded, if they will take drivers off of the Private Toll Road. So now you have a situation where the private company is able to charge whatever they can get from their captive audience, and the state is actually prohibited from upgrading its own highways - as happened in Canada and California (and soon Texas). And finally, at least in Texas, we hired a foreign company to do this - so the huge profits that they will make will not even stay in Texas, or even the United States.

Raising the gas tax a bit is much better, since the mechanism is already in place to collect the money - hence all of the money can go right into the roads, rather than the above mentioned expenses and gouging. Also, raising the gas tax assures that everyone chips in at the same rate, not just the people who need to travel longer distances.
36 posted on 02/02/2005 8:00:33 PM PST by BobL
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