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So many bad assumptions so little time.

This bozo pulls $7.50 out of his #$@#$ and bases his remaining arguement on it. What a moron.

You should'nt even address an arguement based on a false premise. Go straight for the premise.

You are correct that the author pulled the number $7.50 out of his ass. But he had a reason -- it was a round number he could use to make a point.

Because transponder technology is in its infancy, there are no reliable cost accounting methodologies for calculating a reasonable per mile cost, not to mention factoring in congestion pricing, improvements and law enforcement aspects.

Doing a literature search on the subject put the author in a difficult position. Oregon, for example, is proposing to change a penny per mile via transponder to be collected at the pump. London is proposing $2.30 per mile to be collected via transponder, after converting metric to English units and pounds to dollars. Singapore has a mature transponder system with a full range of pricing, and its costs are in excess of London's proposed charges. Lacking an established model, the author was forced to bend over and pull a number out.

Using numbers in the London (proposed) to Singapore (actual) range, the sum of $7.50 in billed costs for a rush hour commute from Shoreline to downtown Seattle is well within the range of possiblity. And it helps illustrate his point.