Posted on 04/14/2018 8:17:56 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Maryland Transportation Authority is exploring phasing out all cash toll booths across the state.
Today, tolls are collected three ways: by cash, or electronically, by either an E-ZPass transponder or by video tolling — when the state uses a license-plate photo and mails drivers their bill.
Transportation officials say that the transition to all-electronic, high-speed toll collection will: save drivers time on their commute, save the state money, reduce accidents at toll plazas, and reduce CO2 emissions as less fuel is being burned, according to a national study by the University of Central Florida.
Drivers in Maryland could start seeing new plazas that only collect tolls electronically at highway speeds by the summer of 2019, said Kevin Reigrut, executive director of the Maryland Transportation Authority.
However the state has no specific timetable or budget for all-electronic tolling at this time, Maryland Transportation Authority Communications Director Cheryl M. Sparks told Capital News Service.
The transition would also mean that anyone driving on Maryland toll roads could soon need an E-ZPass to avoid paying higher fees, and 218 toll operator positions will be phased out across the state.
If you pay using video tolling, Reigrut said, you pay 1.5 times the base rate for that road — and if drivers don’t have an E-ZPass by the time Maryland’s electronic tolls are phased in, that’s the price they’d pay across the state.
This means that drivers from other states who use Maryland roads will be forced to pay more if they don’t have an E-ZPass by the time of the transition.
(Excerpt) Read more at capitalgazette.com ...
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License plate cams are very good, but it won’t be long before all new cars will be required to have RFID tags just like the VIN is now.
"Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts [emphases added]; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."
Note that Constitution-ignoring FDR made the unconstitutional (imo) executive order to confiscate gold.
Executive Order 6102
Drivers from other states who don’t have EZpass will pay 1.5 times the regular rate for video toll.
Consider - Congress passed a law in 2012 requiring toll collection transponder interoperability nationwide meaning a driver with a Florida Sunpass toll transponder could be used for EZpass and a New Jersey resident with an EZpass could use it in Florida. The law required the different systems to be compatible and collect tolls for each other by October 2016. It is national transponder interoperability does not exist. Sunpass, for example has installed the technology to read EZpass but EZ pass has not adapted its system to be interoperable with other readers. If Maryland proceeds with its plan for cashless toll payments, by generating more revenue through video toll collection it has an incentive not to make its EZPass readers compatible with transponders from other systems.
The construction of the interstate highway system was funded 90% by the federal government and 10% by the states. To force out of state drivers without EZ passes to pay a toll 50% higher than Maryland residents with EZ passes seems grossly unfair for a highway constructed primarily with funds collected nationally by the federal government.
In the early days of the interstate highway system some states included their existing toll roads in the system with the agreement the tolls would be removed when the revenue bonds sold by the state to fund the road were paid off. This was done for example on the Petersburg Turnpike, I95 south of Richmond, where tolls were lifted in 1992 when the last bonds were paid off. Unfortunately the federal government has given exceptions to some states who like Maryland continue to collect tolls. Perhaps the answer is to simply mandate the tolls be lifted from all interstate highways.
You could still have electronic transactions, IMO, but they would simply all have to be backed by silver and/or gold.
Good practical insight.
And we can also appropriately amend the Constitution for electronic transactions backed by silver and/or gold.
Also, the Constitution should require the states, not the feds, to back electronic transactions with gold and silver.
Down in New Zealand, there are three toll situations. No Booths. They have a scanner that reads your tag, and you are supposed to have an account with them, with a bank or credit card situation. Me being a visitor? Well...you have 72 hours to log in, put your rental car tag number in and charge to your credit card. After that, there’s a bill sent to the rental car company with a fee attached and they will take the money from you.
Unless they can prove illegal status with a criminal record while having been deported multiple time. They the can ride for free.
Wow. That is interesting. I wonder if we will go that route eventually. The problem is getting money out of people out of state. I wonder if they don’t pay, they send it to a credit reporting company so it screws up a person’s credit score. I can see them doing that. Otherwise people won’t pay outside of Maryland.
Globalists who push for a cashless society on an American conservative site should be pilloried and flogged with a bullwhip.
Does the constitution have anything to say on this issue?
I know when my daughter drove my car across the country a couple of years ago I got bills from a few states I though were unjust because they included a fine for not paying the toll. I just chalked the few dollars up to her belief that dad is the source of all wealth, but now it looks like she may not have even had the choice to pay in cash.
First they convert the cash toll roads to electronic pay, then they convert ALL THE ROADS to electronic pay. It will be so easy to create toll roads, every community will insist their roads are turned into money mills.
This is going to get bad. Question is, is it going to get bad as fast as everything else is getting bad?
Glad I’m going to be senile or dead soon.
Except for this:
This means that drivers from other states who use Maryland roads will be forced to pay more if they don’t have an E-ZPass by the time of the transition.
Seems to me this is a violation of the interstate commerce clause. Having outstate travelers paying the same rate as instate is defensible. Paying higher rates is not.
I'm sure we'll see a lawsuit.
You reminded me that I crossed that bridge last month and could not see any toll booths, I just got an additional $7.95 charge from my Rental Car company, I bet it’s that bridge toll.
Marylanders who don’t have EZ-Pass will also pay the higher rates.
“And if you don’t have a credit card and you only operate in cash?”
It all sounds far more invasive than requiring picture ID to vote, which as they have told us, is racist.
When you get the toll bill in the mail, you can send a check.
Maybe. But the tolls would be higher.
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