Toll Roads and Interstates

[apples]

And you know this how?

comparing money in with money out

its all public info

[Trump]

comparing money in with money out

its all public info

Okay, so you should have no problem being able to post exactly how much monetary federal assistance we provide to illegal immigrants and resettling refugees and the cost to maintain Wyoming's interstate. Post all relative numbers and make your case. If not, then quit posting as if it is complete truth.

Regardless, I said if we cut funding to those types of programs that it would increase money available for roads. Do you actually deny that? I never said that cutting those programs alone would pay for all road repairs, just that it would help.

[Orlong]

many items besides cars require gas.

many people who own cars never use them but are still required to keep them registered.

having unregistered cars on the streets is a great way to see the crime rate skyrocket, may as well say that before someone comes in saying get rid of registrations

Why should a car need to be registered more than once until ownership changes hands? How will reregistering it every year deter crime? The only reason we do it is to chip in for road maintenance, at least thats the idea anyway

[Tijuana]

When President Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System, it was created to provide rapid transit for troops and defense vehicles as well as evacuation routes for disasters such as hurricanes, volcano eruptions, etc... So why is it legal for them to be tolled? Ill be damned if I should have to pay a toll to flee from an erupting volcano or a nuclear meltdown on Three Mile Island like we almost had in the 70s.

Additionally Interstate Highways were supposed to be funded by Federal money collected via fuel taxes, but somehow some of the the burden got shifted to the states over the years and, somehow, the government gets away with reallocating fuel tax money to fund bullshit like bike trails, subsidizing mass transit (mostly private companies) because people wont ride mass transit if they have to pay what a ride actually costs, rails to trails programs, and beautification programs.

Toll booths also slow down traffic and cause a lot of congestion especially if youre not using Easypass, and since Interstate highways are often the only convenient and fast way to get where you want to go youre forced to either pay the toll or waste 2 or 3 extra hours taking back roads and sitting at red lights as an alternative.

The tolls arent even affordable anymore. If you need to drive it every day. It now costs $1.80 (and this has increased every year for the last 5 years and is scheduled to increase every year for the next 5 years) just to drive from one side of the Susquehanna River to the other and its only about 5 miles, do this twice a day every day for work and it gets very expensive (almost $1000 a year just to go to freaking work!!). The only other alternative is to sit in gridlock for about 12 miles on Route 83 wasting 2 hours each way, or drive about 120 miles out of your way

Even more ridiculous is even with the ever rising tolls, the roads seems to never be in good shape. The Pennsylvania has been in near constant construction between Harrisburg and Philadelphia (I-76) for 20 years, and its been well over 10 years that they have been "repairing" the turnpike from the blue ridge tunnels all the way to Pittsburgh, and it still feels like your driving on a dirt road in many places, so you get to pay for the privilege of driving on a bumpy road that always has delays due to road work. Even in places where tolls were instituted to pay off bonds that were issued to build a bridge or road, they continue to collect tolls decades after the bond was paid off. That should be illegal!!

We already pay fuel taxes, vehicle registrations, license fees, inspection fees, and traffic fines to fund the maintenance of roads, we shouldnt have to pay user fees as well. Stop reallocating funds that are supposed to be used only for road maintenance, and charge the appropriate fare for a ride on mass transit. A 5 mile bus ride should NOT be only $1.25. Mass Transit fares should be by the mile rather than a flat fee.



It cost about 75 cents per mile to operate a car once you account for fuel, insurance, and maintenance on the vehicle, now add in a little more to pay the bus driver and they should be charging bus riders about a dollar per mile. Then they would be paying their fair share and will contribute to road maintenance instead of sucking money out of the funds

If the roads were privately built, then by all means, tolls would be appropriate but they are built and maintained by the government and we ALL use the roads even if we dont drive. With the exception of a handful of severely disabled people everyone rides on the roads in some way and as such should pay for it through taxes

Three Mile Island can't melt down, as was proven in the 1970s. Just sayin...

However, I agree that while toll roads are legal, they should not be part of the interstate highway system.

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Why should a car need to be registered more than once until ownership changes hands? How will reregistering it every year deter crime? The only reason we do it is to chip in for road maintenance, at least thats the idea anyway

People move. Part of the registration is so they can find you after a hit and run someone.

[belfpala]

Regardless, I said if we cut funding to those types of programs that it would increase money available for roads. Do you actually deny that? I never said that cutting those programs alone would pay for all road repairs, just that it would help.

Look up the numbers yourself. Funding for "illegals," mostly through medicaid for American born children of illegals, isn't even a blip on NASA's budget, and NASA is woefully underfunded.

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Why should a car need to be registered more than once until ownership changes hands? How will reregistering it every year deter crime? The only reason we do it is to chip in for road maintenance, at least thats the idea anyway

I only have to register my car once. Then I have to renew my driver's licence once every 5 years. And I have to renew my license tabs every year (obviously a tax). Dunno what you're talking about.

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People move. Part of the registration is so they can find you after a hit and run someone.

Nah, I can legally drive a car with New York license plates in New Orleans. I just have to follow their residency laws for updating my license.

[apples]

Okay, so you should have no problem being able to post exactly how much monetary federal assistance we provide to illegal immigrants and resettling refugees and the cost to maintain Wyoming's interstate. Post all relative numbers and make your case. If not, then quit posting as if it is complete truth.

Regardless, I said if we cut funding to those types of programs that it would increase money available for roads. Do you actually deny that? I never said that cutting those programs alone would pay for all road repairs, just that it would help.

youre the one with the vendetta. you do it.

i dont have a "case"

[Reeve]

I take a toll road in part on the way to work every morning. Costs me $2.75/day, and that's for less than a mile of road each way. Yeah, that's expensive (around $50/month). And the City of Houston originally claimed that the tolls would only be there to fund the construction of the other parts of the ring road in question. But that ring road has been finished for a long ass time, and yet the tolls remain in place, and regularly increase. $1.25-$1.75 per toll is pretty high when you compare it to the Dallas toll roads which are typically $0.30 per toll.

But I don't think I've ever seen it on an interstate, just on local freeways.

[petej0]

I guess you'd prefer the road wasn't even there. Every part of the US system of roads/bridges and the like is in a bad spot. We didn't do the proper upkeep when we should have and as such we have the conditions we have now. Having less money to maintain those systems by eliminating tolls won't make it any better.

They should raise the federal gas tax. Which is what is supposed to fund this crap.

And its outright theft what New York charges just to cross a bridge. $12.50 ($15 if you use cash) no matter what bridge or tunnel you use ($72.00 if youre driving a standard truck), every single time you cross!!

To be fair, most, if not all bridge and tunnel tolls are collected only going one way.

[Trump]

youre the one with the vendetta. you do it.

i dont have a "case"

Vendetta?

Again, you are the one that made the claim, not I. It is incumbent upon you to bolster your argument. Don't put it on me to back up your "claims", that is your responsibility.

[Sunseeker]

many items besides cars require gas.

many people who own cars never use them but are still required to keep them registered.

having unregistered cars on the streets is a great way to see the crime rate skyrocket, may as well say that before someone comes in saying get rid of registrations

What are you talking about? Lawnmowers? I already pointed out gas taxes pay for more than just roads. They also pay for environmental things, and lawnmowers still create pollution.

I own two cars. I don't use one of them. It's not currently registered. Why would you maintain the registration on a vehicle you never use?

Who's talking about driving unregistered cars?

[petej0]

Since this discussion was essentially about federal interstates (like I-10, I-65, I-95), the federal government has more than enough money to build and maintain those roads. And if we quit wasting our federal money on things like resettling refugees and providing federal assistance to illegal immigrants we would have even more money to support US citizens and their infrastructure needs.

Hell, we can just stop giving Aid to foreign countries.

[Reeve]

They should raise the federal gas tax. Which is what is supposed to fund this crap.

People are using less gas per mile these days though, so you'll need more than an inflation adjustment. Better would be to base the tax on a multiplier of actual mileage and vehicle ground pressure, which could be managed through odometer readings during your annual re-registration, since pretty soon a lot of people won't be using gasoline at all, instead opting for electric vehicles, which still damage roads.

[Trump]

Hell, we can just stop giving Aid to foreign countries.

Absolutely!!

[Dys]

When President Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System, it was created to provide rapid transit for troops and defense vehicles as well as evacuation routes for disasters such as hurricanes, volcano eruptions, etc... So why is it legal for them to be tolled? Ill be damned if I should have to pay a toll to flee from an erupting volcano or a nuclear meltdown on Three Mile Island like we almost had in the 70s.

Right, shoot yourself in the foot before you even get started. There's no way in hell that tolls would be required if you're fleeing from a volcano or nuclear meltdown. Who's going to enforce it? The next state over that's still intact? The charred and destroyed remains of the offices that created it? You should've went off on a more realistic tangent, because that bit of ridiculousness just killed any interest I had in reading this.

[Calfredd]

Right, shoot yourself in the foot before you even get started. There's no way in hell that tolls would be required if you're fleeing from a volcano or nuclear meltdown. Who's going to enforce it? The next state over that's still intact? The charred and destroyed remains of the offices that created it? You should've went off on a more realistic tangent, because that bit of ridiculousness just killed any interest I had in reading this.

I mean you are in a thread made by Orlong who is known for his odd ramblings.

[Rasulis]

Maybe not, but using funds that are supposed to be used for road maintenance instead of diverting them to other things would definitely help, and finishing one job before you start the next would help make travel a lot less stressful and more rapid. There is absolutely no reason I can think of that a 10 mile stretch of a major highway takes more than a couple of years to rebuild yet we have multiple roads that have been under constant construction for the last 20 years. They start at one end and by the time they finally finish the other end, they start back at the beginning again and start redoing that end again. Are they using shitty materials?, doing a half assed job? poor design?, or is it contractors taking advantage of the Government and making sure there will always be work for them to overcharge for? Im guess its the latter.

Its not just roads either, hell theyve been working on the US Capitol building dome for over 3 years now. It really takes 3 years to clean and paint a damn dome? They build 50 complete Walmarts in that same time period

The capitol dome restoration is a delicate project. The scaffolding had to be specially manufactured and painted a specific white color to match the dome so it is minimally visible against the dome. Removal of the old paint had to be done by hand by skilled workers. They could not just use a sandblaster. There were rust removal, some iron work replacement, crack and water damage repairs to be done. Paint is custom matched to existing. Most of the work had to be done at night. Work started in early 2014 and scheduled to finish in time for 2017 presidential inauguration. So it is within schedule.

With a few exceptions, Walmarts on the other hand are mostly precast concrete panel construction. The permitting process probably took longer than the construction.

[Ramahan]

When President Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System, it was created to provide rapid transit for troops and defense vehicles as well as evacuation routes for disasters such as hurricanes, volcano eruptions, etc... So why is it legal for them to be tolled? Ill be damned if I should have to pay a toll to flee from an erupting volcano or a nuclear meltdown on Three Mile Island like we almost had in the 70s.

Additionally Interstate Highways were supposed to be funded by Federal money collected via fuel taxes, but somehow some of the the burden got shifted to the states over the years and, somehow, the government gets away with reallocating fuel tax money to fund bullshit like bike trails, subsidizing mass transit (mostly private companies) because people wont ride mass transit if they have to pay what a ride actually costs, rails to trails programs, and beautification programs.

Toll booths also slow down traffic and cause a lot of congestion especially if youre not using Easypass, and since Interstate highways are often the only convenient and fast way to get where you want to go youre forced to either pay the toll or waste 2 or 3 extra hours taking back roads and sitting at red lights as an alternative.

The tolls arent even affordable anymore. If you need to drive it every day. It now costs $1.80 (and this has increased every year for the last 5 years and is scheduled to increase every year for the next 5 years) just to drive from one side of the Susquehanna River to the other and its only about 5 miles, do this twice a day every day for work and it gets very expensive (almost $1000 a year just to go to freaking work!!). The only other alternative is to sit in gridlock for about 12 miles on Route 83 wasting 2 hours each way, or drive about 120 miles out of your way

Even more ridiculous is even with the ever rising tolls, the roads seems to never be in good shape. The Pennsylvania has been in near constant construction between Harrisburg and Philadelphia (I-76) for 20 years, and its been well over 10 years that they have been "repairing" the turnpike from the blue ridge tunnels all the way to Pittsburgh, and it still feels like your driving on a dirt road in many places, so you get to pay for the privilege of driving on a bumpy road that always has delays due to road work. Even in places where tolls were instituted to pay off bonds that were issued to build a bridge or road, they continue to collect tolls decades after the bond was paid off. That should be illegal!!

We already pay fuel taxes, vehicle registrations, license fees, inspection fees, and traffic fines to fund the maintenance of roads, we shouldnt have to pay user fees as well. Stop reallocating funds that are supposed to be used only for road maintenance, and charge the appropriate fare for a ride on mass transit. A 5 mile bus ride should NOT be only $1.25. Mass Transit fares should be by the mile rather than a flat fee.



It cost about 75 cents per mile to operate a car once you account for fuel, insurance, and maintenance on the vehicle, now add in a little more to pay the bus driver and they should be charging bus riders about a dollar per mile. Then they would be paying their fair share and will contribute to road maintenance instead of sucking money out of the funds

If the roads were privately built, then by all means, tolls would be appropriate but they are built and maintained by the government and we ALL use the roads even if we dont drive. With the exception of a handful of severely disabled people everyone rides on the roads in some way and as such should pay for it through taxes

I'll list answers 1 by 1 and use small words so you can understand since you've twisted things up so badly to fit your whine!

1) The initial plan was for the Federal Gov. to provide $75 million in matching funds over 5 years. It was never set up to be a network of roads maintained by the Fed. but a series of State maintained roads that interconnected.
2)Though I do hope you were joking but the Interstates are part of the National Evacuation System and toll are not collected during such emergencies!
3) Once again. The Interstate Highway System was not intended to be a Federally maintained system but a plan to match State funds in its building. Imagine the clustercluck of the Feds having its own DPW.
4) The giants portion of the fuel taxes are collected by the States and used for highways and roads which are not part of the Interstate System. Federal fuel tax revenue is used to fund NHTSA and a trust fund used for helping states for emergency highway repairs.
5) How the tolls are collected depends on the State with states like NJ collecting every few miles as each township maintains its own section of the Highway and other states collecting as you enter, or exit, the highway since the State maintain the highway.
6) Some section of the Interstates actually have Toll Booths set up to actually slow traffic even though we all know no one would ever speed on an Interstate!!
7) You can whine and cry about how much the tolls cost you but with tolls you are paying for your use of the highways. Tolls also means that those who do not drive the Interstate don't have to be taxed for its upkeep, your fuel taxes aren't double what you now pay, and the Interstates are maintain better then other roads because it doesn't need years of political studies to get done.

[cuafpr]

even if you over look the misuse of funds, as MPG gets better the income from the gas taxes goes down.

[petej0]

Right, shoot yourself in the foot before you even get started. There's no way in hell that tolls would be required if you're fleeing from a volcano or nuclear meltdown. Who's going to enforce it? The next state over that's still intact? The charred and destroyed remains of the offices that created it? You should've went off on a more realistic tangent, because that bit of ridiculousness just killed any interest I had in reading this.

Yeah, in cases of natural disasters or evacuations, tolls are suspended.

[kail]

Sounds to me like your state simply sucks at executing toll collection. The concept of tolls is fine, just another tax for using government infrastructure/services. The SunPass transponder in FL is super convinient and cheap as hell. There are 3x lanes dedicated to SunPass compared to cash tolls, you can speed by them at 60mph.