I wouldn't say failing and in dire need of repair. Over the past... 5 or 6 years WSDOT has done a pretty decent job prioritizing projects and getting things taken care of. There certainly are bad spots, but, overall I think they are doing a pretty fair job. Seattle faces interesting problems with the population booming here, so I can't fault them too much for falling behind.
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Virginia’s $40 Toll Road Better Be the Future of Driving
- Thread starter Megalith
- Start date
Its a false alternative. You couldn't drive it before, but now you can at a high price, so now its better. This is false because the decision to restrict you entirely in the first place set up the high price to drive later. So yeah, rich people get to drive the fast lane, 99% get screwed, and they trick you into thinking its "fair".
D
Deleted member 222586
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Still much, much cheaper than in Europe. Bought gasoline yesterday at 1,32€/liter
And it was the cheapest day of the week. Ughhh. Yup, that is 5,94€/gal or around $7/gal. Yuck.
/dev/null
[H]F Junkie
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Still much, much cheaper than in Europe. Bought gasoline yesterday at 1,32€/liter
But you get health insurance included, no?
If I take what I pay for health insurance and divide it over the gallons of gasoline I use driving, I'd pay an extra ~ €30/gallon.
I think you have the better deal. That does not include co-pays, prescriptions, etc...
D
Deleted member 222586
Guest
Yeah, but health insurance isn't even being paid with fuel taxes. Some areas add a "céntimo sanitario" (sanitary cent, literally) which amounts to up to 0,05€ per liter to help with sanitary expenses.
This is the path to the future. There are too many roads, too much infrastruture, and too little taxes to pay to maintain them all. It is a very fair system that will help change the way we develop land and how we choose to live. Want to live in the suburbs and have a 30 minute commute? Fine pay for the roads. Want to live biking or walking distance? Fine don’t pay for the roads.
dgz
Supreme [H]ardness
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Health insurance built into the gas price? I don't think so. Is this really a thing somewhere in the world?
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The "city dwellers" still need to pay for the roads or how else is their food getting to them? There are no cornfields in manhattan.
/dev/null
[H]F Junkie
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When I bought my house in 2008, I was looking at 2 options:
1) Mortgage at ~ $3000/month (which I couldn't afford) for a 2 br condo at 1500 ft^2 (not even in Chicago, actually...) with questionable schools, more crime & 100 year old public transpsort infrastructure that was 5 minutes from work.
2) Or I could have a ~ 2200 ft sq. ft house, 800 ft^2 finished basement and mortgage of ~ $1100/mo, but have 55-70 min commute to work, way less crime, better schools (for my special needs son), less traffic, free parking, etc.
The choice was easy. "Punishing" suburbanites for using roads when there is no viable public infrastructure and nothing really affordable with good schools & low crime in a reasonably priced neighboorhood is quite simply, insane.
If the city had those advantages (I'd give up space for the same price) with better crime rates & great schools, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but the unfortunate fact is it doesn't.
Likewise, choosing the "city life" where you don't need a car & can do everything on public transport is fine, but where do you think all your food & factory produced goods come from? How do you think they actually get to the city?
On top of this, I already pay the following taxes to pay for roads:
County Sales Tax
State Income Tax
State Sales Tax
Illinois Tollway tax
Gasoline tax
If they were to add anything like that, even $8 or something, it would be over-the-top.
I'd be actually OK with slightly increasing taxes (COLA) by the government(s), if they actually used it for roads. They don't. It goes into a slush fund. </ illinois >
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dgz
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Hm, it makes sense. I mean, road repair is an obvious one but it would make sense for a bunch of administrator to split costs and provide a break down of each component in that big fat tax.
In the scenario you describe, city dwellers pay the farmers more for their corn, and the farmers use their increased revenue as they see fit, which may include transporation costs. Thus, the consumers of the corn are paying for the roads used to deliver the corn, but indirectly, and in proportion to their demand for corn.
Presumably the local government is raising revenue both ways because people would complain if gasoline taxes were raised further. My point is that, if the state needs the money to pay for the roads, then they have to raise the money somehow. This thread is full of complaints about any form of road-related revenues without much discussion of the cost to build and maintain the roads.
Also, a benefit to having "surge pricing" on roads is that it can help promote people working hours other than 9 AM - 5 PM. If some people worked 8 to 4, and others 10 to 6, then the same amount of road could be used to transport more people. In theory, surge pricing could help encourage this behavior, ultimately reducing costs for everyone.
uh wut? Not every job out there is a office setting. As much as I would like to work at home it keeps me more productive and I assure you most other people when they are in a office with out all the distractions I have at home.
Master_shake_
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you're not getting it,
if everyone in an office worked from home that reduces all traffic.
so people who don't work from home aren't stuck with people who do.
They're raising funds in two ways because the gaoline tax does not go back to infrastructure, it goes back into G/L. The tolls at least are bound to be used only for further road improvement, so that's a start. Also, they cannot continue to raise gas taxes, as the revenue from that is receeding, because electric cars do not use gas. So they're also looking at a per-mile tax (they say they'll remove the gas tax if the per-mile tax passes, but I'm very skeptical of that being true, and staying true).
If nobody used it, the prices would drop and the "peasants" would use them. Then the prices would rise and the "peasants" would stop using them. The real solution in heavy traffic areas is mass transportation. The subway in DC, in my limited experience, seems pretty decent, so if they have a decent train/subway system going from VA to DC, that's a solution. I'd rather ride a train than drive an hour or more in traffic, but in most places that's not a viable option.
Most of the people I know that advocate for bike lanes are 20-35 years old and are anything but rich. Besides, building more lanes doesn't work. You build more lanes and they build more houses further from the city which increases traffic and within a few years, traffic is clogged again. The solution, especially in large population centers, is better mass transit.
exactly. I mean they just keep adding lanes all around DC and still doesn't matter. the public transport in the area is pretty meh. hey lets get on a bus that still has to sit in traffic.
the metro in DC is still being expanded west. its half way to leesburg now. Problem is, depending on where you live, you still need to get to a place to park to get on the metro. Parking costs money (usually)
Free parking would certainly be better. It's free in some places around Dallas, but land here is probably significantly less expensive than VA/DC. Regardless, the only real solution is mass transit. Sometimes you need to drive, but a lot of times you don't...that's especially true if one can work on the way to/from the office.
/dev/null
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I think you missed the point. I'm talking about roads getting built, not farmers getting paid.
Yet here in Southern California, due tot he latest gas tax increase, even Costco is over $3.00/gallon.
Plus we have some of the worse roads and worse traffic in the country.
Except mass transit here in Southern California is so bad, that once they started giving "undocumented" people licenses, there was a significant drop in mass transit ridership.
Something as simple as taking the train to the airport doesn't work.
There's a train station close by, but they don't allow long term parking. (they used to several years ago but not any more).
Then there the problem that the train doesn't connect to the airport. You'd have to catch a cab between the 2.
Add all that together and it's cheaper to take a shuttle or just pay for parking at the airport.
The farmers pay a transportation company to drive their produce on roads using trucks, which the transportation company delivers to customers in cities. The trucks burn diesel, and the truckers pay a tax on the diesel. So who pays for the roads? Well, the transportation company does, and they pass this cost on to the farmers. The farmers pass this cost on to the people in cities buying the food. The point is that, in a market economy, costs can get passed on from one entity to the next, so that even though I live in a city and don't own a car, I still pay for these roads indirectly. If our roads need more work, and fuel taxes increase, then the cost of food might increase too. That means I pay more for my food, in part to pay for the roads.
/dev/null
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Depending on the Company/Market these increases may not be passed on. Large companies like Amazon do NOT pay (or pay very little) taxes so that is not necessarily true. Trucking companies probably take those fuel taxes & write them off (I mean I would) so although you are collecting money for fuel taxes from them, that takes away from taxes on profit. It's net neutral.
In any case, the 5 or 6 taxes I'm already "paying for roads" (that aren't used for roads) are more than enough. Perhaps if they want better roads they should already use the 5 or 6 taxes I'm paying for roads for ACTUALLY FIXING ROADS
rather than random stuff...bigstusexy
2[H]4U
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I hope this isn't the future and it dies a quick death. I live in the burbs but grew up in the city. I have friends on the north side of the city and I am in the south burbs. I rarely have or want to go into the city in the morning rush but there have been times. With congestion charge it would come into play any time there is a lot of traffic. So when there are games, concerts and so on the fees would get higher; problem is that most of the time these things are going on. I don't have great access to public transit, I'd have to drive 20minutes to get to the train instead of 45 to an hour to my destination. The parking isn't so great, and I thought about it recently, I'm walking around with about 3k in camera equipment. I'd like to no do that on public transit all the time and become a target.
Oh not to mention that $40 isn't going to repair, help, or build smog and pollution damage nor significant amounts to build new roads it's going to get lost in governmental BS and used without oversight.
Oh not to mention that $40 isn't going to repair, help, or build smog and pollution damage nor significant amounts to build new roads it's going to get lost in governmental BS and used without oversight.
farscapesg1
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Hmm.. I guess I just figured this was pretty common for HOV lanes since Houston has been doing it for years. HOV lanes along I-45 and I-10 have the option to pay tolls to use them if you don't have 2+ people in the car. I always viewed it as an option because the HOV lanes are generally pretty empty but have only taken advantage once or twice. Granted, $40 bucks sounds extreme, but it sounds like that is an extreme case and they are usually closer to $10-15. I could take the Grand Parkway around Houston from my house to work and avoid a ton of traffic.. but that costs me $10+ each way and an additional 20 miles of driving.. to save about 20 minutes during rush hour.
With that said, the variable rate is what confuses me. I'm pretty sure our HOV tolls down here are set to a fixed rate, no matter the time, whenever the HOV lanes are open. However, our HOV lanes are never full that I have seen, unlike mentioned in the article. Whether we just don't have as many carpool drivers, or because of the limited entrances/exits to the I-45 HOV (one of the reasons I don't use it), who knows. The idea of a HOV lane already restricted to carpool and hybrid vehicles being at capacity during rush hour is crazy.
With that said, the variable rate is what confuses me. I'm pretty sure our HOV tolls down here are set to a fixed rate, no matter the time, whenever the HOV lanes are open. However, our HOV lanes are never full that I have seen, unlike mentioned in the article. Whether we just don't have as many carpool drivers, or because of the limited entrances/exits to the I-45 HOV (one of the reasons I don't use it), who knows. The idea of a HOV lane already restricted to carpool and hybrid vehicles being at capacity during rush hour is crazy.
Emission
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People who buy gas guzzling cars already get hit with a gas guzzler tax at the time of vehicle purchase, now you want more tax on top of that?
Normally I might see it your way, but public transportation around NYC is complete and utter garbage. Speaking of extra road use taxes, NYC has been quietly raising the toll costs for years to try to curb congestion and it's still a problem.
I would love public transport if it was comfortable, reliable, and inexpensive, but it is none of those things, so it can fuck right off.
D
Deleted member 83233
Guest
That's the problem here. I would quite happily take public transportation for commuting here, (and then just drive for other things) but there isn't viable public transportation that's anywhere even remotely close to as fast as driving (even in traffic). They're starting to do this kind of thing here too. Not nearly as bad in pricing, but I could see it getting there.
Haven't used them either. YA, did squat for traffic jams, but I hear they are quite profitable. We could really use some intercity light rail or a second batch of lanes over 405 and I-5.
D
Deleted member 83233
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Heh, I was talking about Seattle too.
JustinCorrigible
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Just one of many reasons I've been fortunate enough to refuse to work in D.C. and stay in VA.
Hitting the tolls every day in Chicago area you're looking at $60/month.
tempertantrum
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I'm from Southeast MI, too. I'd love to be able to use public transit, but it's terrible most places, and often intentionally so. But MI politicians refuse to fix the roads. It's the worst place in the country to drive. :-(
Your traffic sucks, but in my visits to CA, I've never found the roads nearly as bad as places like LA, MS or AL, for example. It's not even a close call. You've already addressed your Mass Transit issues, though I'd add that sprawl probably makes the problem virtually impossible to solve. I suspect there are people commuting from 60 miles (more?) out in some cases, which is insane.
Well, it makes sense that people who use more gasoline pay more in gasoline taxes, since the tax is per gallon.
Part of the problem is that gasoline taxes aren't always indexed to inflation, they're set at a fixed number of cents per gallon. So yes, we already have gasoline taxes, yet at some point they might not be enough to pay for the roads because they haven't kept up in real dollar terms. Then, some unlucky politician is faced with having to break the bad news to everyone that the tax needs to be increased.
The big questions are how much should it cost to build and maintain the roads, or public transportation, and what are the best ways to fund them? I don't know these numbers, and of course they vary from place to place. I've made choices which allow me to live without a car, so I don't have to worry about the price of gasoline or road tolls. I realize that not everyone can make this choice, but I suspect that more people are starting to realize that car ownership is actually very expensive. A bigger problem is that, here in the US, we have enough wealth to spend on infrastructure, but instead choose to spend it elsewhere, such as on war and tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. Those are our priorities, and poor infrastructure is one of the consequences.