Toll roads love or hate (Round Rock, Cedar Park: quality of life, taxes, price)

[loosenup]

I agree, if that is indeed the case that is wrong. It is my understanding that any exsiting roads would not ever be tolled. If that is what they are doing then that's just plain wrong and should be illegal.

I know in SoCal they did the same thing, except only new portions of roads were tolled, never existing roads (or sections of roads).

I agree the roads should never be used as a sole means of getting from one city to another (Bastrop etc.), but as an additional option.

[Trainwreck20]

They are working around the 'existing' road issue by updating the existing roads, generally by adding a lane, then taxing the entire road...not just the new lane. The roads do need to be expanded, and I do not have a fundamental issue with toll roads, but it really irritates me that they will do a sound-bite 'no existing roads will be tolled', and then do some doublespeak explaining, when pressed, that Hwy 71 will be a new road...it doesn't really exist right now?

[Spookmeister]

The thing about this is we're all paying for the toll roads whether you use them or not, it's just the amount that varies. A portion of the tax on gas goes towards building and maintaing roads. Nowhere does it say that they keep the funds separately, therefore I assume there's comingling and disbusrsement from the same account.

[fraggle]

The British government has put a proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 ($360) and in a recent study the lowest monthly bill was £28 ($50) for a rural florist and £194 ($349)for a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 ($154) in one month.

On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been
going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time you can
probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution (speeding fine) with your monthly bill. The idea of tracking every vehicle at all times is sinister and wrong. Road pricing is already here with the high level of taxation on fuel. The more you travel - the more tax you pay

I dont agree with this at all and there was a petition set up on the 10 Downing Streets website and has already topped 1,299,495 votes against the idea,

[MarknEurope]

Originally Posted by fraggle

The British government has put a proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it.

I'm not surprised to hear that. The UK has an amazing amount of Surveillance whether on footl, or in car. We call ours, "Big Brother", yours I suppose, with the Queen and all would be "Big Sister."

[Trainwreck20]

Conceptually, I wouldn't mind paying a tax on miles travelled; of course, we already sort of do through the gas tax, and if you have a low mileage vehicle, you pay even more. Seems it would be much simplier to up the gas tax.

As for actually tracking mileage, I would rather they just check my odometer annually or something. They would get the mileage, there would be next to no cost, and there would be no 'tracking' of where you went.

Interesting, I just did a search, and there was an article on how Oregon is studying a Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT), projected to be ~1.25 cents per mile. The motivation was to make up lost gas tax revenue from hybrid and high efficiency vehicles. What a crock!

[southaustingal]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Interesting, I just did a search, and there was an article on how Oregon is studying a Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT), projected to be ~1.25 cents per mile. The motivation was to make up lost gas tax revenue from hybrid and high efficiency vehicles. What a crock!

Per year? So that would be about $30K/year for my household. Yikes!

[Trainwreck20]

I am assuming for a 20k miles per year x 2 cars for 40k miles, at 1.25 cents per mile, would be ~$500 per year per household (but let me go check my math on a paper )

[southaustingal]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

I am assuming for a 20k miles per year x 2 cars for 40k miles, at 1.25 cents per mile, would be ~$500 per year per household (but let me go check my math on a paper )

Doh! I thought I read dollars, not cents. OK, that's not bad, considering CAMPO proposes about $1,000/year per driver. And doesn't Oregon not have sales tax? Wonder what their income tax is like.

[daugs]

Since I'm still new here what is suppose to happen with the millions of dollars that comes from the taxes on the toll road...

Don't tell me Perry is giving this company a huge tax break