I don’t mind tolls as long as it is only for the road you are on and can’t be used for financing other projects.
All road work has to be bid on by private contractors.
The idea of tolling a road that is already paid for through taxes makes me mad.
“I don’t mind tolls as long as it is only for the road you are on and can’t be used for financing other projects.”
They offered that to Pennsylvania on I-80 recently. No big cities on that highway, so lots of pass-throughs, particularly trucks between the Northeast and Midwest.
Pennsylvania had been bitching about the cost to maintain I-80 for decades. So they finally got their chance. The Transportation Bill passed back then allowed for 3 ‘tolling experiments’, one of them being I-80 in Pennsylvania. So Pennsylvania put in their proposal to the Obama Administration and it got REJECTED.
Why? Because Pennsylvania also wanted to use I-80 as a ‘revenue engine’ (a little toll road lingo) for other purposes, particularly mass transit in Phili and Pittsburgh. The law didn’t allow it...the money collected could ONLY be used to maintain that highway. The state was invited to re-submit, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
Bottom line, and the DIRTY LITTLE SECRET about freeways - they are VERY CHEAP to operate once built. Their value is in their right-of-way. That’s why these crony ‘operators’ are salivating at the chance to monopolize these highways, because they cost next to nothing to operate, but when they connect NYC to Chicago/Cleveland/Detroit they can collect HUGE amounts of revenue.