Posted on 12/16/2005 4:56:14 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Pricey tickets and denial of the use of Illinois toll roads could be the result of proposed rule changes.
Illinois State Toll Highway Authority officials approved a sweeping plan in October enabling the agency to levy new charges against motorists using the state's 274-mile network of toll roads. Residents have until January 22 to request a public hearing on the provisions. Forty-five days after that, the decision will stand unless a legislative panel votes to reject the plan.
Toll road officials are looking to pocket $75 every time a motorist drops change near a toll basket and then attempts to retrieve his own money from the ground. Those using I-Pass electronic transponders will find a host of new tickets and fines as well. If an account drops below zero or a driver forgets the device, the tollway will impose a $25 "administrative fee." Those who receive a traffic ticket or improperly use their I-Pass would be cut off from service.
Currently, between 50 and 60 percent of motorists use I-Pass, but transportation officials nationwide have been moving toward eliminating the cash payment option entirely. In Dallas, Texas, for example, the Highway 121 toll road is being designed as an electronic payment only toll road. Combined with closings of alternate, free routes -- as has happened by contract in Colorado and Sydney, Australia -- denying a motorist the use of an electronic transporter could soon be equivalent of denying the use of formerly public roads entirely.
Speed cameras will also be in operation soon on the toll roads issuing $375 tickets on the first offense and $1000 tickets on the second, along with demerit points against the driver's license and a 90-day license suspension.
Source: Fine, fine, fine til your tollway takes your I-PASS away (Chicago Daily Herald, 12/15/2005)
Illinoise politicians need their payoff slush money.
Combined general and Trans-Texas PING!
Let's just hope these rules don't get imposed!
CO is just as bad. To use about 10 miles of I-470 around DIA, it costs motorists $1.75 at three seperate spots. Unbelievable.
How can they keep someone from using a toll road? Doesn't our federal and state taxes pay for their building and maintenance?
Hope this doesn't stretch as far as Oklahoma. I enjoy using their turnpike.
Judy Baar Topinka will lose in a landslide.
I'm not sure I understand that. Are they saying if you accidentally drop your money, you have no right to pick it up? You then have to fish around your wallet, the car, holding up traffic to find more? or, is this something people do to try to get through tolls illegally? If it's the former, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. Of course, Dems run the entire state, and we all know they have no shame.
You got it. That turd Ryan certainly never helped the situation.
In Dallas, Texas, for example, the Highway 121 toll road is being designed as an electronic payment only toll road.
Dirty bastards. I am glad I left. Too bad I use the tollways to work and shop. That state is run by a real bunch of pricks. They make people like Saddam look good.
I don't feel so bad about what I did to a tollbooth on the East/West Expressway back in 2001. My truck had a bad turbocharger oil seal: whenever it idled for a few minutes (like at a toll booth), it would allow oil to pool in the manifold. When I took off, the engine ingested a good bit of the oil (which to a diesel, is fuel), engulfing all east bound lanes in a fog of smoke! We high-tailed it to Gilbert, where my turbo kit came from (Hypermax Engineering), got the parts, rebuilt it at a local truckstop, and made it back to VA. The truck and turbo are both doing fine, 4 years and 60,000 miles later...
... revenue ping...
Oklahoma has a plethora of turnpikes.
There's the Will Rogers, Muskogee, Indian Nations, Cimmaron, Turner, H.E. Bailey, John Kilpatrick, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek turnpikes. Some of the advantages these offer are (at least in the past) reasonable rates and higher speed limits.
I, too, hope this doesn't stretch to the Sooner State, but once any state starts this type of crap, it's sort of "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here".
I think E470 is a great addition to the Denver area,
It's privately owned, about 50 miles in length, and usually doesn't have too much traffic. The lighter traffic is probably due, in part, to the toll. I for one am glad that there is an option to the I-25 fiasco. I can bypass Denver in comfort.
By way of comparison, look at C470. No toll, of course, and heavy, heavy traffic.
I think it costs about $1.75 x 5? tolls to travel the entire length. The fact that this is a private road alternative to public roads does make the high toll more palatable for me.
That would work out to $87.50 for a week's worth of two-way commuting -- a not-insignificant deduction from your net paycheck...
That makes no sense. If a good truly had zero marginal cost, and if there were absolute competition for price (such that a supplier whose price was 0.1% lower than a competitor would snatch 100% of the competitor's business) then it might be impossible for a supplier to maintain a non-zero price, but if there is sufficient supply that one supplier can take care of everyone at zero marginal cost, there's no need for a second supplier.
In real life, however, there's a major twist: very seldom will two competing businesses try to act entirely interchangeably. In the toll bridge case, it would generally make little sense for someone to build a toll bridge immediately adjacent to another. It would make more sense to position one's bridge so that there would be some people better served by it than by the competition. Thus, even if the competition offered free service, people might be willing to pay a toll because, for them, the toll bridge was better-placed. And of course, if either bridge charges a toll, that increases the room for the other to do so.
Although geography may force prevent bridges from being built anywhere except immediately adjacent to the competition, in most situations that would not be the case.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.