Butter up! Toll increases. (Houston, West: tax, cost of, cars)

[sugargenius]

Originally Posted by DJboutit

My mom works for Harris county in the accounting department toll road authority make a min of $200k to $500k a day off tolls They said when the beltway was payed off they would drop the tolls well it has been payed off for yrs and there are still tolls today.

That's what I recall when I was in high school and the beltway was under construction. Just goes to show you that once government has its hands on a source of money, it always wants more.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Originally Posted by piyf

The funny thing, it's going to cost them money for the pilot program. Where as they could just charge the electric vehicles a flat extra $150 registration fee when it's due and actually make money. It equates to driving 10k miles a year.

Rather than make money with the people who they have now, they want to do a pilot program that requires them to hire more people and install some electronic hunk of crap in your car, while losing money.

Why do stupid people get into government?

Anytime the government gets involved in anything, it leads to red tape, inefficiencies, waste and bad service. That said, they won't have to install anything, almost all cars these days already record your miles electronically, this was mandated sometime in the 90's as I recall. Not too long ago, another bill was passed to require the "black box" with GPS capabilities be installed in cars after 2015. It has been quietly done BTW, everyone complains about the NSA, but no one ever complains about their car.

Senate Passes Bill Requiring Black Boxes in All New Cars | PCWorld

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by sugargenius

That's what I recall when I was in high school and the beltway was under construction. Just goes to show you that once government has its hands on a source of money, it always wants more.

Here we go again blaming "evil government"
Toll-roads by definition are a goverment-private business partnership.

Why don't you also blame the private business side of the toll road?
It's called "corruption" and it doesn't matter who did it.

[oespinoza83]

Toll increase plans suspended for now.

[PedroMartinez]

Originally Posted by Dopo

Here we go again blaming "evil government"
Toll-roads by definition are a goverment-private business partnership.

Why don't you also blame the private business side of the toll road?
It's called "corruption" and it doesn't matter who did it.

Who sets the toll prices?

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

Who sets the toll prices?

HCTRA
now that I look into it, it's not a private company, it's a government run company (county)
so what's the point of having a toll road then?
We can raise taxes to build an NFL stadium but we can't do the same thing to build a highway?

[PedroMartinez]

Originally Posted by Dopo

HCTRA
now that I look into it, it's not a private company, it's a government run company (county)
so what's the point of having a toll road then?
We can raise taxes to build an NFL stadium but we can't do the same thing to build a highway?

We should be using any tax money for sports stadiums.

That being said, I'm still in favor of toll road highways paid for by the people that use them.

I haven't heard a single good reason why having those that use them pay for them is a bad idea.

Edit - first sentence was supposed to be:

We should NOT be using any tax money for sports stadiums. Sorry.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

We should be using any tax money for sports stadiums.

That being said, I'm still in favor of toll road highways paid for by the people that use them.

I haven't heard a single good reason why having those that use them pay for them is a bad idea.

Thank you for saying this. Tolls can also be avoided, while property and sales taxes can't. And neither can fuel taxes, if you drive a vehicle with an internal combustion engine - even if you're not driving much on the highways which fuel taxes mostly pay for (rather than local streets, which are mostly paid for by local property and sales taxes).

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

We should be using any tax money for sports stadiums.

That being said, I'm still in favor of toll road highways paid for by the people that use them.

I haven't heard a single good reason why having those that use them pay for them is a bad idea.

One reason is that toll road users are also paying fuel taxes at the same time so effectively double paying into the system.

Another reason is the inequity of some highways being free and some being tolled. The hundreds of thousands of cars using 45, 59, and 10 aren't paying tolls.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

We should be using any tax money for sports stadiums.

That being said, I'm still in favor of toll road highways paid for by the people that use them.

I haven't heard a single good reason why having those that use them pay for them is a bad idea.

it's a great idea ... as long as there's a public alternative.
There's no public alternative to Beltway 8 unless you consider 1960 an alternative.