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That's one of the things that prompted my question,I recently received a shockingly huge toll bill in the mail. For some reason I didn't seem to be receiving them in a timely manner and they multiplied,I was also shocked to hear of the steady increases in the rates. What I thought was one price was way higher. Being that they're moving towards a cashless system,I wasn't able to pay in cash out of my commute budget.
As a car owner, I think it makes sense to tax car owners extra.
The toll is an easier tax to put on the public because its a usage tax like the tax on cigarettes.
The tolls help pay for the high costs of infrastructure, the scale of which don't exist in most places, like the tolls around the Baltimore and NYC tunnels. Now those are big tunnels and even $$$$ tolls!
I don't really mind them nor pay them any mind; but I grew up with them. A toll to come to Philly but not to leave it. A toll on the Turnpikes. A toll to go to Delaware. A toll to go to Atlantic City. A toll to cross Baltimore. A toll to enter Manhattan....
Most toll roads were never part of the state road system. They were alternatives, created with private funding. Some were paid off and turned over to the state, as in Kentucky, and lots of bridges, too.
Governor Huey Long promised that no-one would ever pay to cross a river in Louisiana, and no-one did, until Long was assassinated. After nearly acentury, I think the state has a dozen free ferries, and just one toll bridge..
It's even better when the tolls aren't actually used to maintain or build roads, but to finance the money pit that is mass transit as is the case here in the D.C. area.
My sky is big, blue and bright, and I haven't paid tolls for 20 years, and never plan to again! I'm born in NYC, raised in New Jersey, and from the age of reason, I always questioned the notion of tolls, particularly when I began to travel more, and realize, largely, once you leave the northeast, and especially west of the Mississippi River, tolls are almost non-existent. Mobility and freedom need not have an extra price affixed to it. I pay a lot in federal and state gas taxes. The roads in my area are maintained excellently.
My sky is big, blue and bright, and I haven't paid tolls for 20 years, and never plan to again! I'm born in NYC, raised in New Jersey, and from the age of reason, I always questioned the notion of tolls, particularly when I began to travel more, and realize, largely, once you leave the northeast, and especially west of the Mississippi River, tolls are almost non-existent. Mobility and freedom need not have an extra price affixed to it. I pay a lot in federal and state gas taxes. The roads in my area are maintained excellently.
Incidentally; the highest tolls I've ever had to pay were in TX; to get into DFW airport.
You're preaching to the choir for those of us in Pennsylvania who already have a high gas tax and high tolls whilst simultaneously having sub-par roads.
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