THOUGHT the gas tax was for road maintenance? (living in, costs)

[debster]

Think about it....why do we have a gas tax? It is for the maintaining of the roads that should be free to drive on. If everyone would not pay for this lane, they would have to shut it down...since we already pay for the privilege of driving on the roads through the high cost of gas, why should we pay more to ride in the fast lane....open up ALL the lanes and let the traffic through. Put the big trucks BACK in the 2 right lanes! When they are across the 5-6 lanes, 1 in each lane, they also back traffic up.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by debster

Think about it....why do we have a gas tax? It is for the maintaining of the roads that should be free to drive on. If everyone would not pay for this lane, they would have to shut it down...since we already pay for the privilege of driving on the roads through the high cost of gas, why should we pay more to ride in the fast lane....open up ALL the lanes and let the traffic through. Put the big trucks BACK in the 2 right lanes! When they are across the 5-6 lanes, 1 in each lane, they also back traffic up.

Yeah, I just commented about that here:

//www.city-data.com/forum/21136244-post55.html

[tonygeorgia]

Someone should make an anti 85 toll lane page on fb

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by debster

Think about it....why do we have a gas tax? It is for the maintaining of the roads that should be free to drive on. If everyone would not pay for this lane, they would have to shut it down...since we already pay for the privilege of driving on the roads through the high cost of gas, why should we pay more to ride in the fast lane....open up ALL the lanes and let the traffic through. Put the big trucks BACK in the 2 right lanes! When they are across the 5-6 lanes, 1 in each lane, they also back traffic up.

The HOT lane is still a choice, although I think it's a silly idea too. You should try living in the northeast where often you MUST pay an exorbitant toll and there is NO alternative.

[cwkimbro]

Well ignoring the general arguments on the toll lane itself...

The gas tax alone isn't enough to fund our road building and maintenance at the federal, state or local levels.

The gas tax isn't the main cause for the high price of gas. Supply and Demand in the worldwide market is.

Georgia decreased the gas tax (at the state level) several years ago. This has made our DOT vastly underfunded.

So, while your right... you're also partly wrong... sadly enough. The gas tax doesn't cover everything.

Now as far as the toll goes... It isn't actually a money-marker... It is a money-loser. In that it costs more money to build and operate the toll lane, than it brings in revenue. This was considered a "demonstration project." The three things we will have to look at going into the future to see if it is effective is:

1) If the state builds the whole HOT-lane system plan (posted on the GDOT website), it will include road widening on top of taking over HOV lanes...(1 HOV lane becomes 2 HOT lanes in the long-run... This includes I-85 North...eventually). The toll is estimated to be able to pay roughly half, which still makes it considerably cheaper for adding a new lane.

2)The HOV-2 lane was already congested at peak periods. The natural progression is for it to be converted to a HOV-3 lane. The problem is... there are not near enough HOV-3 carpools on the road to fill the lane up. This is why they 'sell' excess space off. It is so the room in the lane isn't wasted by simply making it HOV-3 only, so it really is... a HOV-3 + Toll lane.

3) A typical freeway lane allows 1800-2000 cars to pass by per hour in ideal conditions. A few things that lower this number is a high amount of merging, but also extreme congestion (when the speed of the roadway is less than 25 mph). This amount can be reduced to 1500 or less cars per hour from congestion. The lane starts to carry fewer cars per hour, because the cars aren't moving fast enough for the maximum amount of cars to pass through in a given hour. However, if a lane can be maintained at 45 mph... the maximum amount of cars can pass by per hour. The project actually increases freeway capacity, but mainly only during the extreme congested periods. A few of the other projects across the country have seen some small capacity improvements in that one lane during peak periods (10-20%). The problem obviously is... how to keep the lane from getting too crowded and lowering capacity... tolling, which isn't equitable. Truth be told... this is new enough and untested enough... we aren't completely sure if this will always be the case for every stretch of road. Nonetheless, this is the real reason for the new push in HOT lanes and why the feds call it congestion relief. The on-ramp traffic lights were built for the same premise.... Control merging... the flow of the right lane isn't slowed as much allowing for more cars per hour to pass by.

[tonygeorgia]

It's plenty of ways for the state to get funds besides having a toll