Maryland “Freak State” PING!
The toll collectors on the PA turnpike are Teamsters.
Over two years, I saw the toll for a small section of road increase nearly 100%.
Never saw any word done on that section of road.
Gotta pay those union wages.
Gotta pay those union benefits.
Gotta pay those union pensions.
The huge unspoken joke about toll roads is that you get to pay extra to sit in your traffic jam. At least with the public roads, everyone shares the same pain for the same price.
For the Rick Perry supporters out there, don’t laugh too hard at Maryland - we had virtually the IDENTICAL thing happen here with our popular (that is, popular outside of Texas) governor.
In 2002, he got legislation and state constitutional amendments passed when everyone (but me) was sleeping. Then he started to put down the hammer and tried to convert state freeways to toll roads and even wanted to convert interstate freeways to toll roads.
Much of this grandiose plan was called the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC). People in the state FINALLY started waking up when Perry started the process of seizing 1000 foot wide ‘corridors’ throughout the state for the TTC (the plan was to have truck highways, rail lines, pipeline, electrical lines, etc. in these corridors, along with car tollways) and also when they saw the attempt to turn their daily commute into “revenue engines” for the state (as they say in Austin).
...and these toll roads were not cheap. They were essentially owned by private companies who were given the unregulated power to toll the drivers at any level they wanted (in other parts of the world they charge 20 cents to 1 dollar PER MILE). And just to throw salt into the wound, these companies were granted monopoly protection against new parallel highways, upgrades in existing parallel highways, or even resurfacing of existing parallel highways.
...and why did he do all that? Because, like Elrich, he didn’t want to be known for raising the gasoline tax by a dime. The tax had essentially lapsed due to inflation and the diversion of 25% of it ‘for the children’ thanks to an idiotic constitutional amendment passed when the Dems still ran things here and had some extra highway money.
So the lesson here is BE CAREFUL about which taxes to oppose. The longer people say no to paying for road work through gasoline taxes, the more hair-brained ideas like that of Perry will surface. For example, we now see a ‘mileage tax’ being floated in DC. Don’t think FOR A MOMENT that this tax is just for highways. Once they have the the transponders in cars and can set rates, the taxes will be ENORMOUS and we’ll end up like Europe, paying the equivalent of 8 or 9 dollars per gallon to drive (or even more, when they’re through here), so that illegals can have the health care they deserve.
It’s all called SOCIAL JUSTICE and, unfortunately, way too many Republicans are STUPID enablers in this plan due to their opposition to ANY tax increases (even when they’re just to keep up with inflation).