California's future may be paved with fees (Are Toll Roads The Future?)

LA Times ^ | 13 February 2007 | Evan Halper

[shrinkermd]

SACRAMENTO — In California, birthplace of the freeway, where motorists can traverse all but a small fraction of the state without encountering a tollbooth, the free ride may be coming to an end.

There is emerging consensus in the Capitol that the state should follow the path already blazed elsewhere and look to tolls to help bankroll new roads, public and private.

Local and state transportation agencies are already planning several such projects on busy urban corridors, and some of the world's largest investment firms are lining up with proposals that could leave them in control of some major new roads.

Voters last November approved billions in borrowing for roads, but that was only a start; the money won't meet all the state's transportation needs and never was intended to. Nor would anything short of a major increase in the gas tax — one for which voters appear to have no appetite. That leaves tolls.

[Izzy Dunne]

However, I don't know how to break this to you gently. Politicians lie.

I am aware of that.

I am NOT arguing that the gas tax actually covers the cost of the construction.

I am just doubting that they will REDUCE the tax.

[Who dat?]

Arroyo Seco Freeway (Pasadena) opened December 20, 1940. No tolls

I thought the initial phase of the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened around October of 1940.

Just bringing it up because my understanding was that “freeway” didn’t depend upon whether or not tolls were required, just whether it had controlled access and no crossings at grade.

Further, I recall there were highways (parkways, whatever) in the Northeast that *almost* qualified (technically) as freeways way before 1940. They had controlled access and no (or minimal) crossings at grade, but they prohibited commercial traffic and therefore couldn’t be called “freeways.”

But maybe I’m misremembering… there – there’s three minutes of my life gone that I’ll never get back. LOL.

I suspect it’s a case of California thinking they “birthed” something that they didn’t, that’s all.

[OregonRancher]

My dad told me that the people were proud to call them freeways because they didn't have to pay a toll, we Californian's being so more advanced than the old fashioned people back east who didn't have the good sense to move someplace warm.

Said to me while Dad was driving.