Here is a simple idea whose time has come: Replace all roadway tolls with a local tax. This could be a gas tax, income tax, sales tax, or even a federal tax. States could be forced to comply by using the leverage of federal highway funds. I have heard all of the arguments in favor of tolls, and none, in my opinion, justify the pollution, inconvenience, danger, and loss of time that toll collection imposes on the citizen.
Even with modern toll collecting techniques, cars must slow, sometimes stop, accelerate, swerve, and merge at toll crossing. This increases accidents, injury, and pollution. Modern toll collecting adds complexity to our lives. Why not use established tax channels to pay for roads?
Tolls are extremely inefficient means of collecting revenue. How much is your time worth? I’ll bet the time it takes to pay a toll during rush hour is worth more than the toll for almost everybody.
I do not believe that tolls greatly affect the use of public transportation, or regulate the amount of traffic on roads. Most people drive because they must. Tolls are viewed as a tax. If they are made so high as to force persons to use public transportation that was inadequate for them, then the public is very poorly served.
Tolls are unfair. Roads, bridges and tunnels benefit everyone, not just drivers. Imagine life in Manhattan without bridges and tunnels!
The most brilliant innovation in toll collecting was the one-way toll. Now it is time for the 0-way toll.
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Out of rush hour, full-stop manual tolls take less than a minute to for the driver and probably half that in collector time. Typical full-stop tolls exceed a dollar. If a toll-collector costs $20/hour ($0.17 per $1.00 toll), then the toll-stop is not efficient only for those earning more than $50 per hour. Unattended toll-collecting, high-speed toll-collecting (e.g., E-Z Pass) and higher toll levels raise the breakeven wage levels.
First off, I do not want to pay for your driving, or at least the lack of my driving. I don't use highways enough to warrent paying a tax on it.
What would be better is an inevasive system, that should be mandatory. I don't know if it exists in many other states, but in Illinois, we have an I-pass system, that charges you your toll through an RFID you keep on your dash board. Your either sent a bill or its taken directly from an account. Currently there are I-pass specific lanes, but if this where mandatory, everyone would have one built into the car.
To improve the system, you would be tagged as soon as you got on the highway, and as soon as you got off. Your toll would be calculated by distance or some other metric.
No need to slow down or stop. It could be also be used to collect stastics, and catch speeders. For example, based on the speed limit between point X and point Y, it should take T ammount of time to cross those two points, plus or minus some for living in an analog world. Now, if the drivers time N is less than T, he was speeding, and we can even calculate his average rate of speed. He will recive his ticket in the mail, like they do in Chicago.
Let’s collectively consider how to enumerate the costs of collecting a toll in the traditional way. Let’s assume there is a wait. I have been in many rush hour waits lasting more than 20 minutes. My personal record is 3.5 hours. Here are all the costs that I can think of. Please think to add more.-Loss of driver’s time due to waits on the road-Wear and tear on car-Added pollution due to stop and go-Added accident hazard, due to stop and go and merge-Loss of opportunities due to missed connections-Loss of business revenue due to worker productivity declines-Adverse health consequences of added stress-Total compensation of toll taker-Amortized expense of building a toll plaza-Maintenance of toll plaza-Toll administration expenses, including HR, money handing, project management, bond issues, etc.
I am going to do some research to estimate what the size of these costs are. If I can find some representative figures for what a toll authority thinks its profit is, and then subtract all of the other costs that the toll authority doesn’t include (eg., pollution, hazard, loss of time), then I will have found the true profitability of toll collection, I am willing to bet that it is negative. Anybody have some real data?
Modern toll collection methods reduce some of these costs, but not all. In addition, high tech solutions add the following costs:-Driver stress due to added technological complexity-Costs of implementing upgrading advanced technology by the driver, time and money-Costs of administering, implementing and upgrading technology by the toll authority-Risk of loss of revenue or highway use due to technical failure-Additional fines and nuisance taxes due to increased driver monitoring-Cost to subscribers due to non-compliance by other drivers
There is no way to collect tolls on those passing through that way.
Yes you could collect fuel taxes. I know truckers are obligated to buy so much fuel from states they pass through.I don't know how they enforce that, or how they would from cars and light trucks.
The politicians don't care about improving mobility. And they don't care about the needs of the people. All they care about is the money and toll abuse is a cash cow to this government. Toll taxes are easy money to the politicians. If you need proof, just look at the latest US pork transportation bill, you will see that there is absolutely no reason to replace tolls with other taxes. There is every reason to eliminate the tolls. Even though, the politicians have enough of our money, they want more. They will always want more. To put it simply, it is time to stop toll abuse and "Ax the Toll Road Tax". It is time to demand transportation reform.
As a Floridian, I know beyond any reasonable doubt that toll taxes are nothing more than a tax scam against the people. Our Transportation Trust Fund is raided on an annual basis for non-transportation expenses while the toll taxes go up and up. It is a fraud on the people - plain and simple. In Central Florida, a service industry town, it is not uncommon for motorists to spend $1200 per year in toll taxes. These are transportation taxes on top the fed, state and local gas taxes, licensing fees, registration fees and of course other taxes such as property taxes, sales taxes, impact fees, etc etc. This $1200 is taken out of the local economy. $1200 is a lot of money in an area that has more low paying service jobs than anything else. It also affects the small businesses. So, toll abuse affects our local economy and quality of life in more than one way.
It is also important to remember that the Florida politicians promised the tolls would be "temporary" - another lie by those entrusted to serve the people. And now, the plans are to add toll taxes to all of our national Interstate highways. It is so disgraceful. Most elected officials and governmental agencies are controlled by the money of the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and the needs of the people have become irrelevant. The "preamble" of our Constitution has become irrelevant to most elected officials.
I have been fighting toll abuse for the last 4 years and I am looking for other victims of toll abuse that have courage to fight to preserve the American Freeway. The people must speak-up for what is right. Please let me know if you are ready to help fight "Toll Abuse". I know of other volunteers that are ready to fight toll abuse and demand transportation reform for all Americans.Please write "Stop Toll Abuse" in the subject line of the email. My email address is SallyLBaptiste@att.net or visit www.axthetax.org.
I don't think you will see any freeways become toll highways, at least not here in New England. They tried to do this in NH, twice, a few years ago, and both times there was a loud protest and it didn't happen. As I understand it, they did change the federal funding rules about 10 years ago such that toll roads can now get federal funding, where they couldn't before. We need tolls on bridges and tunnels because they are much more expensive per mile than highways and fuel taxes don't begin to cover this cost. We need tolls even after the original construction is paid for because maintenance is also more expensive. In big cities, tolls may encourage a few people who can use public transport to do so. If nobody changes over to public transport due to tolls, it means the city's public transport system is badly broken and people should demand that it be fixed.