Posted on 01/07/2021 7:22:12 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Michigan drivers and taxpayers have been complaining about road and highway conditions for years.
But the solutions policymakers have recently proposed ranged from the politically impossible, like raising the gas tax 45 cents per gallon, to financially-risky short-term fixes like borrowing billions in bonds to pay for teacher pension contributions so that money could be shifted to funding for roads.
But it seems like Michigan lawmakers may be warming up to a long-term, sustainable, users-pay solution to achieving better roads: tolling.
Lansing's interest in tolling has gone back decades but this year the state Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration have taken big steps to make tolling a reality.
This spring, Public Act 140 of 2020 authorized a two-part tolling study to look at whether tolling is a feasible way to help rebuild the state's Interstates and major freeways. The legislation enjoyed strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate and from a wide range of stakeholders, including the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT).
The tolling study could provide a pathway for a long-term solution to funding and modernizing Michigan's highways, which are in poor condition and experiencing growing traffic congestion compared to the rest of the nation.
Although Michiganders might have apprehension about tolling, it is a proven way to reduce traffic congestion and improve roadway conditions. Tolling also employs the user-pays principle that would negate the need for considering an unpopular statewide tax increase to fund certain road repairs.
(Excerpt) Read more at bridgemi.com ...
There is a much bigger issue underlying all of this. We simply don’t finance our infrastructure properly because it is crowded out in budgets at every level of government by other sh!t that is considered a higher priority by most Americans.
if the congestion goes down then the traffic has gone down and thus,less money from the tolls...
Seattle has this 405 deal going where there are 1-2 lanes that you must pay for but you get to go fast, fast fast....meanwhile, those who can't afford the many bucks per day to get to and fro work, just struggle along on congested roads....
its always about more money and less about congestion,traffic safety, air pollution, or last of all, citizen convenience.
Had to put my glasses on.......I thought it said “Trolls”........
I thought for a second “Can we ship Trolls in to fix the roads? Where do they live?”
I have better idea...how about we just quit paying pubic school teachers 100K+ for a part-time job?
Cuomo just raised the minimum wage, and got another pay raise guaranteed by a 2019 Bill. He's the highest paid Governor in the country now...$250,000 a year. I'm waiting for my turn to the nursing home :-)
Let’s play word association:
Camel, Nose, Tent
Michigan allows some of the highest gross weight trucks on its highways in the nation.
Reduce gross weights, at least during the spring thaw, and you’ll go a long way to reducing road damage.
Demonic Democrat Governor - no one should doubt what’s coming — taxes, more taxes, spending to buy votes, more taxes and so on and so on! Michigan voter are fools if they expect anything different.
I’m moving to Tennessee. Sick of ths goddamn state.
CC
“Since you’re already taxed enough, why is more money the answer??”
You mean it doesn’t work? Gee, I thought throwing more money to teachers to fix dumb kids always worked/s
Don’t trolls live under bridges? Maybe they could be persuaded to do some periodic maintenance on their abodes.
I live in IL, where toll roads are everywhere. Not only are our roads WAY worse than MI’s, but we recently had a former freeway turned into a tollway because the money from the toll roads is not going towards road maintenance, but towards almost anything else (like our overburdened pension system). Any work done to our roads is poor in quality and all of the same areas are torn up EVERY YEAR. It’s inexcusable.
Just put in some GD concrete and have the roads be good for a decade or two; or more. It’ll be cheaper in the long run.
Trust me, once you put in one, they will reproduce with stupid frequency, all while your road quality goes nowhere.
“Trolls” are what people who live in the UP call those who live in the lower peninsula because they live “Under the Bridge“
Looks like a HARD LEFT publication, and things like road tolling could be the beginning of what’s to come with our new rulers, as the (somewhat) bi-partisan opposition was able to hold off the very well-financed tolling lobby.
But now, as we go Third World to imitate a Europe which mostly doesn’t even exist anymore (due to them letting themselves be flooded by Third Worlders), we should expect a LOT MORE in the way of Middle Class tax increases (such as this), which will be part of a futile effort to hold off our full collapse.
“Yes. The fixes are sorely needed, and it’s better to have the users pay than the non-users.”
In Pennsylvania, the ‘users’ of the PA Turnpike are so generous that half of their tolls (maybe more now) go to transit systems of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
I suspect that Michigan drivers will be just as ‘generous’ once their tolling system is in place.
Projections and yes, sometimes drivers modify their driving patterns by leaving the state since typically the tolls are accompanied by a huge bureaucracy and a slew of other taxes and fees.
“Just put in some GD concrete and have the roads be good for a decade or two; or more. It’ll be cheaper in the long run. Trust me, once you put in one, they will reproduce with stupid frequency, all while your road quality goes nowhere.”
My (conservative) kids already have friends apologizing to them for (the friends) voting for Biden. (yes, real Americans did vote for Biden, many of them)
They admit they trusted the media over my kids but NOW are finding out just how sick Biden is (regarding his health, in this case) and the policies that the Democrats really want, but were disciplined enough to ‘keep it in the family’ (with the media’s help, of course).
My point is that once STUPID political decisions are made, in this case turning roads into piggy banks for Democrat-run governments, regardless of the pretty promises (no more potholes, for example), it is often IMPOSSIBLE to reverse them. Toll roads are an excellent example, with Kentucky being the only state that I know of to actually keep their word and remove tolls.
So, Michigan can have its toll roads, if it really wants them so bad, but they shouldn’t be surprised if their roads DO NOT get any better, since the state will simply divert other money that would have been used for roads to ‘more pressing’ concerns...which means, in this case, making their voting base happy.
The point about tolls is no longer the funding IMO. It is the real-time tracking of those on the road.
“2. They often don’t work in practice because toll revenues rarely meet their protections over time. Too many motorists are so averse to tolls that they modify their driving patterns to avoid them.”
I think part of the problem with revenue projections result from the fact that the people making those projections don’t really understand the politics behind tolling, particularly how new ‘revenue engines’ (a little toll road lingo, by the way) often become piggy banks for other causes.
So the tolls have to be higher, the traffic further drops, and the net result is that you have taken a perfectly good good highway partially out of service.
I still remember the attempt to put tolls on I-80 in Pennsylvania about 15 to 20 years ago. The system was all set to start as Congress had approved several ‘Demonstration Projects’ to show the country the wonders of tolling our Interstates. But Congress had one little clause: Revenue collected from the new tolls could ONLY be used for maintenance and upgrades of THOSE highways (i.e., actual ‘user pays’, in this case, rather than the usual middle class tax increase disguised as tolls).
Guess what, Pennsylvania WALKED AWAY from the plan once they found out that they would be held to that clause...just wasn’t worth the effort to them to set tolls so low because then they’d have to explain the sky-high tolling rates on the PA Turnpike...where most of its ‘revenue’ money is now diverted for non-Turnpike uses.
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