It's mildly interesting that you consider someone making a (presumably) rational economic choice (to use the tollroad or not) as being "pushed" upon you. Is the source some sort of sense of entitlement?
"It's mildly interesting that you consider someone making a (presumably) rational economic choice (to use the tollroad or not) as being "pushed" upon you. Is the source some sort of sense of entitlement?"
It's no different from taxes. If you tax something greatly, people will tend to avoid it. If you're tolling at some insane rate, and other options exist (like what's left of I-35, in this case - or surface streets in other cases), people will consider the alternatives and clog surface highways. This happened when they doubled the tolls on trucks on the Ohio Turnpike. The diverted trucks started having accidents in the small towns on the parallel routes, and the state then decided that they needed to lower the tolls (fortunately, since Ohio owns the turnpike, they can adjust the tolls - rather than having to go begging to Cintra - which is our future).
What I cannot understand is how pushing cars and trucks on to surface streets is helpful to Texas, in any way.