If the toll is used to only pay for a road, without the social engineering aspects and the toll disappears after the road is paid for I have no issue.
I realize those three “If’s”is like saying “If I was Superman I could fly.”
The tide turned with the TTC.
The corruption in that boondoggle poisoned the well for a long time to come.
Seems simple enough. Write off the top 25 problems and let folks find work-arounds. (I avoid 625 East, for example). There's enough money for the rest.
Unmentioned are the problems caused by poor design choices and TxDot induced congestion. For example, many of the lanes are designed so that the tires pound on the concrete seams instead of having the concrete panel widths match the lane width. This hastens the need for repairs, funneling money into the pockets of the contractors, but greatly increases congestion from those projects over the long run. Exit ramps too close to the cross streets back up traffic down onto the expressway. Lanes that end just past an exit instead of making the lane an 'exit only'.
The only question in my mind is whether the TxDot engineers are incompetent, or corrupt.
frigging tolls.....
Last time i was in Chicago there was one every 2 mile or so.
here in MA they are plotting the same.
1st, they are too freaking expensive. I used to have to drive the Bush tollway in Dallas. When I ended up moving to within bike-riding distance of work, I saved about $250/month in tolls. That's just insane. I don't recall how much they were charging per mile, but it was just astounding. I could see spending a dollar per day to use toll roads. Given the way they are all electronic toll booths now, they could easily do that.
2nd, for many of these "new" tolls they are looking at adding, they really aren't new roads. What they are doing is stealing lanes from freeways and tolling them. We the taxpayers already paid for those roads once, thank you. We do not feel like paying over and over for the same road forever. Which leads to...
3rd, tolls never go away. From what I understand, I30 to the south of Dallas was constructed as a toll road. Once the tolls were paid off, the road was converted to a freeway. However, once a "tollway authority" was established, not one single road has ever been 'freed'. We know that they will remain toll roads until the sun runs out of hydrogen.
There is more, but I'll stop there. I hate tolls.