VERIFY: Are Houston toll road fees ever going away?

KHOU ^ | May 19, 2017 | Tim Wetzel

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

HOUSTON - The teachers at Spring Forest Middle School asked KHOU 11's Verify team whether Beltway 8 has been paid off and if the tolls will ever go away in the foreseeable future.

"Why do we still pay for toll roads?" wondered 7th grade teacher Rebecca Mustachio. "To be honest, I thought we would be done paying for toll roads."

We are not even close to paying the bill for those roads, according to Roxana Sibrian of the Harris County Toll Road Authority.

In a statement emailed to KHOU, the authority says it will be paying off construction debt until at least the year 2049. That doesn't include the cost of new construction projects as the county's mobility needs continue to grow.

HCTRA says construction of Beltway 8 and the Hardy Toll Road costs $2.5 billion, and even after that is paid off, tolls will continue to be collected to pay for maintenance.

[a fool in paradise]

Tolls will go away just like the 1876 temporary tax on telephones has.

That 1800s phone tax began as a "tax the rich" policy. Now everyone has a phone.

[a fool in paradise]

Robert Eckels, and he’s also a part of the team trying to sell the state on the highspeed rail from Dallas to Houston (that will require taxpayer funds to actually tie it into downtown Houston).

[NOVACPA]

We have the Dulles Greenway (euphemistically named, of course) here in Loudoun County.

We locals call it the Greedway...one of the highest cost per mile roads in the US. Tolls never go down, thanks to the politicians in Richmond, who always talk eminent domain and state takeover at election time, then pass bills to raise the tolls.

[SeeSharp]

The tollway in northern Indiana that was built long before I was born is still raking in the dough!<

Revenue from the tolls on I-80 are currently committed to the I-69 project.

[fella]

I’m not sure if it applies to cell phones.

[jughandle]

NEVER. That was NJ’s original plan with the Parkway and Turnpike. Instead they just create new, easier ways to collect those tolls. Too much money to be made for the state...”political patronage pit” as a radio station here calls it.

[faucetman]

The New York State Thruway, was built in the 1950s.

“All tolls along the Thruway were supposed to be abolished when the construction bonds used to build it had been paid off. The last of the bonds were paid off in 1996” (Wiki).

Yes, we still pay tolls.

[FrankR]

They finally shut down the tolls on I-400, in Atlanta, but now it’s terrible, snagged with traffic. I’d gladly pay 50 cents to avoid the traffic snarls.

[Saltmeat]

Tolls are an elitist thing. They are a way of keeping the riff-raff off of their roads and out of their way.

[Kozak]

Ask the people in Illinois...

[TexasGunLover]

Pushing full privatization particularly of roads,

Privately funded roads are finished much faster and with less disruption than publicly funded roads. Any conservative should be willing to accept use taxes, in other words, paying for what you use.

[9YearLurker]

Nope—not in areas that involve natural monopolies, such as roads in crowded regions, which is most of the US.

Toll road inefficiencies and big brotherdom more than cancel out the simple spreading of local road costs across local taxpayers.

[9YearLurker]

Most of the country simply needs to get unions out of its government and government-contracted functions.

There’s an inefficiency all conservatives ought to be able to join against!

[red-dawg]

I drive to Houston 3 or 4 times a year, and I take the NW section of Beltway 8 from I-10 to I-45.
There are 2 toll plazas and an exit booth in that trip.
EVERY time I have driven this stretch, the traffic is bumper to bumper, and the entire pack of cars is moving at 70 mph.

You could walk from rooftop to rooftop, all while moving at 70.

One time I did a quick calculation/guess that there must be at least 50,000 cars a DAY travel that road, all paying for it.
A conservative estimate would be that this stretch of road collects close to $100,000 per day.
That might be $3 Million a month.

[Wallace T.]

When the 7th grade teacher's students are retired and living on their pensions or investments, they will still be paying tolls on the Houston area toll roads. Only two states, Kentucky and Connecticut, ever entirely abolished tolls. Both states are presently considering their reimposition.

[zeugma]

Only two states, Kentucky and Connecticut, ever entirely abolished tolls. Both states are presently considering their reimposition.

In Dallas, a stretch of what became a part of I-30 started as a toll road. Once it was paid off, the tolls were removed.Now that we have a permanent "Tollway Authority" though, it will never happen again.

[ro_dreaming]

The ONLY place I have ever heard of a toll booth being taken out permanently is the Coronado Bay Bridge. When the bridge was built, it was tolls both ways, then when I was stationed out there, only going from San Diego to Coronado... the last few times I’ve been there (1999 through 2015), there was no toll at all.

I can’t believe it, but yes, in California, they REMOVED a tax (toll).

[TexasGunLover]

Toll road inefficiencies and big brotherdom[sic] more than cancel out the simple spreading of local road costs across local taxpayers.

Hardly. Paying for what you use is true conservatism, not diminished socialism. Don't want to pay, don't use the roads.

[9YearLurker]

What kind of conservative hell are you for, anyway? Are you trying to make money off your neighbors with a toll road?

Roads are the first and most basic thing that the most local possible level of government should support.

[TexasGunLover]

Roads are the first and most basic thing that the most local possible level of government should support.

I live in a gated community and we pay for our own roads

I get onto crowded "public" highways, and would like an option to pay more to get to where I'm going faster. I applaud higher tolls as it reduces my commute. The sliding scale express lanes are great here in DFW as they adjust the price based on the demand to keep traffic flowing.