Tolls in North Texas due to jump 32% Sept. 1st

[Ilovethewindycity]

How does San Antonio afford to build so many highways and not have to make them toll roads? I've been travelling to San Antonio frequently for the past 10 years and construction on the roads is still going on. I can't understand why any new road that is going to be built in this Metroplex has to become a toll. I wouldn't mind paying the toll if there weren’t so many tolls to pay on one road. The DNT, which is 32 miles long, has 8 tolls beginning at Wycliff and ending at El Dorado for a total of $3.60 in one direction. Do the math, someone travelling to work 5 days a week on the DNT is paying $7.20/day, $36/week, $144/month, that is ridiculous. I think that if Dallas and Houston have tolls then San Antonio and Austin should also and the NTTA should not be allowed to own so much. This whole toll road business is getting out of hand.

[TriumphOfTheSprint]

Originally Posted by Ilovethewindycity

How does San Antonio afford to build so many highways and not have to make them toll roads? I've been travelling to San Antonio frequently for the past 10 years and construction on the roads is still going on. I can't understand why any new road that is going to be built in this Metroplex has to become a toll.

San Antonio has had a debate going on for years about building a tollroad for US281 (north of 1604). That road is still a 4 lane divided "highway" with stoplights - they don't have the money to build it as a free highway. With all of the new construction in that direction, it is a major headache to commute on. They only recently added an access ramp to go directly from 281 to 410 - that took many years to pass as well.

You're right that construction on the roads has been going on for the past 10 years, some of those projects would be quicker if built as a toll road.

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

Bluescreen - the problem with trying to carve up gas taxes on a per mile basis is that there's the assumption that you're driving on 100% roads build/paid for my those gas taxes. I drive 90% of my miles on city streets.

I realize that, I just want tax averse people to know all the options. People are too quick to allow politicians to bend them over a barrel just to avoid hearing the word tax.

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

That said, I am also annoyed that I pay fed gas taxes and hardly drive on roads paid for by said tax.

There is only 1 way (that I am aware of) to specifically tie highway usage fees to a particular vehicle and a particular geographic region. GPS devices in every single car/truck/tractor/motorcycle/Vespa in the country.

The GPS device will track all the miles driven by the car inside a particular geographic region (be it state, county, city, whatever). There are 2 ways to pay for it. 1) Every time you fill up, you offload the GPS data and the fee is added to your fill-up. 2) April 15th. When you file your Federal Taxes, you offload your GPS data and send in a check to cover your fee.

I do NOT support this idea because there are immense privacy issues with it. Even though the agencies involved in the pilot programs have said that the GPS won't store route information, it's only a matter of time before some politico says "we need to save that information for <blah>" and then they can track your every move.