Posted on 03/11/2014 8:20:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
Mr. Barone has obviously never driven the Pennsylvania Turnpike
You beat me to it. Beyond the condition of the turnpike itself are the highly overpaid toll booth workers. Miserable people.
The Chicago toll road was supposed to only last as a toll road until the tolls paid for the road. That was a couple of decades ago, the tolls are still there.
Tolls create a new industry, toll collectors and toll management. Most money from tolls go to payroll and benefits, not the roads. This of course drives up the total cost of transportation by adding an unneeded layer of excessive costs.
Ditto the Ohio Turnpike.
The bonds were paid off in 1989. The toll booths were supposed to come down at that point. They are still there.
You will get the tolls and keep the gasoline tax.
The way the government works, they’ll bring back tolls and keep the gas tax ..... then you can sit in long lines at the toll booths and burn more gas, thus adding tax revenue. Of course, I’m sure the toll collectors needed will be unionized. What’s not to like? [snark ... or maybe that should be ‘snarl’]
The gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon. My car gets about 30 MPG, so the tax works out to .61 cents per mile, or 163 miles for each dollar of tax.
I live in New Jersey. The New Jersey Turnpike is supported by tolls. To drive from the Delaware Memorial Bridge to Exit 11 (my exit) costs me $7.25 for 90.6 miles, with works out to 8 cents per mile.
So the Turnpike Toll costs me 13.1 times as much as the gas tax!
I have no problem with usage fees instead of gas taxes... tomato/tomahto... But I got a big problem with a 1310% tax increase. And I suspect the usage fees are going to be a lot closer to the NJ Turnpike Tolls than are to the Gas Tax.
Tolls? Tolls? Are you kidding?
Obozo's new simplified tax code will consist of two parts; Part one - How much did you make? Part two - Send it in.
“Hey, how did you manage to get this Federal toll booth job?”
“I flunked out of TSA school, dude!”
We actually lost our one toll booth in Atlanta. There was a toll plaza erected on i-400 to pay for it. It actually came down recently.
Toll roads are stupid. A gas tax has almost no additional employees where a toll requires a huge number of people. Toll roads are in better shape because the vast bureaucracy associated with regular roads and the relatively few miles of toll roads.
This guy is full of it. Look at this:
“Per-mile tolling also would eliminate the use of federal gas tax funds for ancillary forms of transportation — subways, light rail, bike paths and trails — which have been gobbling up revenue needed for highways.”
Duh. Really? Ever think of this:
“Per-mile tolling also would enable the use of toll funds for ancillary forms of transportation — subways, light rail, bike paths and trails — which have been gobbling up revenue needed for highways.”
Ditto the NY State Thruway, the bonds were paid off I believe in 1994.
Simple (and expected) solution is to require that all vehicles be equipped with E-Z Pass. Then they simply set up transponders at intervals and tax you permile driven.
Already do that with MD-200 and they photo your license and send you a bill if you don’t have E-Z Pass.
“Computer-generated tolls are a superior form of user fee.”
Seems like a way for “the state” to track who goes where when.
SWEET! Government tracking devices in all cars.
No thanks.
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