Highway bill could pave way toward more tolls on interstates

The Boston Globe ^ | April 10, 2005 | By Alan Wirzbicki

[Boston Blackie]

WASHINGTON -- A provision in the $284 billion highway bill under consideration on Capitol Hill could open the way for more tolls on the nation's congested interstates, marking a departure from long-standing federal highway policy that has traditionally frowned on collecting tolls to pay for roads built with federal tax dollars.

[bill1952]

My wife would say, "That frosts my ovaries!"

I'm just plain pissed off.

Personaly, I'm tired of paying to use something that we paid to build, and pay to maintain.

[bill1952]

And I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a blue state sponsored idea.

[Truth29]

Isn't there a large unallocated balance in the highway trust fund?

[pageonetoo]

Isn't there a large unallocated balance in the highway trust fund?

Yep, almost as much as in the Social Security TRUST FUND!

[varon]

Isn't there a large unallocated balance in the highway trust fund?

Yeppers, it's right next to the lock box for the Social Security trust fund.

[Racehorse]

And I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a blue state sponsored idea.

Maybe.  Maybe not.

Here in Texas, as red a state as you'll find, our legislators are pressing hard for putting toll booths not only on new stretches of highway but on some existing roads.

[Truth29]

So this is just another way to speal from us.

[Koblenz]

I don't know if tolls are necessarily a red state-blue state thing. Here in Connecticut, there are no tolls, and we're pretty damned red.

I am really not that opposed to tolls on congested highways. The fact is, a congested highway means that the demand is greater than suppy, and thus tolls increase the price, so should reduce demand. I am most in favor of tolls that change at peak times and are lower at other times. Particularly for trucks, this should encourage them to go at off-peak times. Traffic jams cost money as well in lost time. I'd much rather pay a few bucks not to sit in a half hour of traffic: my time is worth more than that.

[PoliticalVirgin]

Maybe I am mistaken, but isn't that what a gas tax is supposed to cover?

[Hunble]

National Defense Highway System

When President Eisenhower went to Kansas to announce the interstate highway system, he announced it as "the National Defense Highway System." In 1956 President Eisenhower signed legislation establishing the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (about 41,000 miles of roads). Since then, DOD has continued to identify and update defense-important highway routes. The National Defense Highway system was designed to move military equipment and personnel efficiently

By the late 1930s, the pressure for construction of transcontinental superhighways was building. It even reached the White House, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt repeatedly expressed interest in construction of a network of toll superhighways as a way of providing more jobs for people out of work. He thought three east-west and three north south routes would be sufficient. Congress, too, decided to explore the concept. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938 directed the chief of the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) to study the feasibility of a six route toll network. Some observers thought the plan lacked the vision evident in the popular "Futurama" exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The exhibit's designer, Norman Bel Geddes, imagined the road network of 1960 - 14-lane superhighways crisscrossing the nation, with vehicles moving at speeds as high as 160 km per hour. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 authorized designation of a 65,000-km "National System of Interstate Highways," to be selected by joint action of the state highway departments. Construction of the interstate system moved slowly.

In 1919, Lt. Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower accompanied the Army's first transcontinental motor convoy from Washington, DC, to San Francisco, thereby forming an image in the future President's mind of a system of cross continental highways that eventually led to the concept of the National Defense Highway System. During World War II, Gen. Eisenhower saw the advantages Germany enjoyed because of the autobahn network. He also noted the enhanced mobility of the Allies when they fought their way into Germany. President Eisenhower established the Highway Trust Fund to create a funding mechanism that enabled the United States to build a national road network similar to the German Autobahn.

From the outset of construction of the Interstate System, the DOD has monitored its progress closely, ensuring direct military input to all phases of construction. The National Defense Highway System was responsible for building many of the first freeways. Its purpose was supposedly to allow for mass evacuation of cities in the event of a nuclear attack. The Interstate system was designed so that one mile in every five must be straight, usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

In February 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) designated the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways as one of the "Seven Wonders of the United States." (Other "wonders" include the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, and the Panama Canal.) As ASCE noted, the interstate system has often been called "the greatest public works project in history." It not only linked the nation, but it boosted productivity and helped sustain a more than tenfold increase in the gross national product since the start of the program in 1956. It is the backbone of the world's strongest economy. However, the story of the interstate system is really the story of its individual segments, many of which were engineering wonders in themselves.

When the system specifications for the then National Defense Highway System were being devised, public transportation policy makers determined at-grade intersections, both with railways and other roadways, were simply incompatible with the intended operational characteristics of such a facility, and they were excluded in any and all forms. While this decision had significant engineering and economic consequences and resulted in numerous local dislocations when it came to designing and putting the system in place, in retrospect it should be obvious any other decision would have had profoundly adverse effects on the mobility, capacity, safety and efficiency of the Interstate system as it exists today. Access only by interchanges with ramps and acceleration / deceleration lanes allow vehicles to enter and leave the highway with minimal effect on the through traffic stream. Interstate highways do not have direct driveway access to adjacent properties, grade level intersections, transit stops, pedestrian facilities or railroad grade crossings, all of which interfere with the rapid and free flow of traffic.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways consists of limited access facilities of the highest importance to the nation and are built to uniform geometric standards. They connect, as directly as practicable, the principal metropolitan areas, cities and industrial centers and provide important routes to, through and around urban areas. They serve national defense purposes and connect at border points with Canada and Mexico along routes of continental importance.

[Racehorse]

Maybe I am mistaken, but isn't that what a gas tax is supposed to cover?

Sure it is, in the same way the payroll tax under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act were supposed to cover Social Security.

[Pondman88]

CT is NOT a red state.

[Smartaleck]

Bulldozed: How Taxpayers Get Leveled by Highway Pork

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1380527/posts

>>$3,000,000 - Renovate and expand National Packard Museum and adjacent Packard facilities in Warren, OH (www.packardmuseum.org).

>>$300,000 - Purchase trolley bus for Yonkers, New York.

>>$2,500,000 - Landscaping enhancements along the Ronald Reagan Freeway Route 118 in California for aesthetic purposes.

>>$7,268,486 - For the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers to build the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, a new snowmobile trail in Vermont. This trail would be part of the network of trails managed by VAST, a private organization in Vermont that builds and maintains these facilities.

[BobL]

"Here in Texas, as red a state as you'll find, our legislators are pressing hard for putting toll booths not only on new stretches of highway but on some existing roads."

You'll find that the concept of tolling drivers originated in, of all places, Libertarian think tanks - like Heritage, Cato, and Reason. They're convinced that if you punish people for driving at the "wrong" times and reward (i.e., don't toll as much) people for driving at the "right" times, then you'll get much better utilization of the roads, and no more traffic jams. In other words, if you do it right, you'll have as many people driving at 4 AM as 4 PM.

Communism and Fascism also seemed like great ideas - that is until you got around to implementing them.

The problem here is that there is a definite incentive for government to raise tolls, rather than increase capacity, whenever demand increases. In other words, highways become another form of taxation - a piggy bank, if you will. Here in Texas our 'Republican' governor, Rick Perry, tried 3 times last year to impose taxes on freeways that were either already built, or just about to be completed. He bought into all of this garbage, hook, like, and sinker. And he's taking it a step further. He's signing 50 year contracts with private companies to build toll roads and charge whatever the market will bear - and he's giving them the land to use and monopoly protections.

That's why he may find himself on his a$$ after next year's primary.

I wish this were just a Democrat problem - but it always seems to get worse when Republicans have control.

[BobL]

"Bulldozed: How Taxpayers Get Leveled by Highway Pork"

Here in Texas:

For a car that gets 25 miles per gallon and is driven 12,500 miles per year (i.e., 500 gallons of gas per year)


The cost of the gas tax (combined state and federal)
- about $200 -

The cost of highway tolls (using an average of about 15 cents per mile - which is what we have to pay down here)
- about $1,875 -

Personally, I don't mind some pork if it keeps my driving cost closer to $200 than to $2,000.



TOLL ROADS SUCK!

[bill1952]

But are they part of the Federal interstate system, and were they paid for with our Federal taxes?

I still don't like the fact that Pa. still is grandfathered in for tolls on the expressway since it was built before the Interstate system.

[bill1952]

What? Connecticut is red??

What on earth are you saying?

Did they send their electors for Bush?

[FreedomPoster]

We built a toll road here in Atlanta some years ago; GA400 from I-285 down to I-85, inside the Perimeter (I-285). The promise was that once the road was paid for, and a perpetual maintenance fund established, that the toll would go away.

I'll give you three guesses what has actually happened. The second two don't count.

[evilC]

I would much prefer "tolls" on hospitals and schools. That is where the real money gets spent (probably some of the gas and road taxes too).