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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.
I am in New Jersey and keep in mind we don't have a car tax like other states do (Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, etc).
Cars cost money. Roads cost money. The upkeep is insane. And some operations go to the Port Authority of NY and NJ which gives you fantastic services, like the PATH.
The only state I can think of that has 'tolls everywhere!' are in New Jersey. And guess what, I am not complaining. We have NJ Transit which is a remarkable statewide transit system. What state has the quality of transportation like New Jersey does throughout the ENTIRE state? I cannot think of a single state. In addition, the roads in NJ are unkept very nicely. When I go into neighboring Pennsylvania or up to Massachusetts, which have significantly less tolls, the roads make you get a new alignment.
People, particularly from Pennsylvania, love to complain about New Jersey's high tolls and they will die on that stance. The solution is simple. Just don't come to our beaches? You can avoid going through NJ to south. Going to NY? You can take a 45 minute detour so you don't have to pay our tolls.
I am in New Jersey and keep in mind we don't have a car tax like other states do (Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, etc).
Cars cost money. Roads cost money. The upkeep is insane. And some operations go to the Port Authority of NY and NJ which gives you fantastic services, like the PATH.
The only state I can think of that has 'tolls everywhere!' are in New Jersey. And guess what, I am not complaining. We have NJ Transit which is a remarkable statewide transit system. What state has the quality of transportation like New Jersey does throughout the ENTIRE state? I cannot think of a single state. In addition, the roads in NJ are unkept very nicely. When I go into neighboring Pennsylvania or up to Massachusetts, which have significantly less tolls, the roads make you get a new alignment.
People, particularly from Pennsylvania, love to complain about New Jersey's high tolls and they will die on that stance. The solution is simple. Just don't come to our beaches? You can avoid going through NJ to south. Going to NY? You can take a 45 minute detour so you don't have to pay our tolls.
A Pennsylvanian can also take Route 94 from the Delaware Water Gap to NY for free. That's a lovely road.
Many (maybe most?) of the toll roads in the Northeast pre-date the Interstate Highway System. They're not funded with federal and state gas tax revenue. Ergo, they must raise their own revenues and do so with tolls. The widening projects on the NJTurnpike and Garden State Parkway, for example, are being paid off using toll revenue, not tax dollars. The Turnpike is considering a $10 billion widening of the Newark Bay Extension, which would be funded by toll revenue, not tax dollars.
Then there are more recent public-private partnership (P3) agreements, where a private company is tapped to design, build, finance, operate, and maintain the facility. Tolls are then placed to capture revenue to pay back those costs to that company, plus a healthy profit. These are common in states like Florida, Virginia, and Texas, among others. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ipd/pdfs/p3...ion_primer.pdf
Gas taxes cover less than half the cost of building and maintaining roads in the U.S. Federal funding for roads includes a lot of money from other tax revenues. States have different methods for covering their needs, including other types of user fees (car tax, etc.), tapping other tax revenue streams, and/or P3.
For what it's worth, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission receives no federal tax dollars at all. Also, the Pennsylvania State Legislature and former governor Ed Rendell stupidly passed and enacted a law in 2007 that used the Turnpike as a piggy bank for PennDOT and other transportation agencies within the Commonwealth, which created a lot of debt for the Turnpike Commission, and the resultant toll increases. Thankfully, that law was recently overturned, and is in the process of being phased out. However, the Turnpike Commission still has to eliminate the debt while also undertaking an ambitious plan to reconstruct and widen the entire Turnpike to six lanes, such as this recently-reconstructed segment near Pittsburgh:
It's also worth noting that PennDOT has about as many miles of road to maintain as ConnDOT, MaineDOT, MassDOT, NHDOT, NJDOT, NYSDOT, RIDOT and VTrans combined, and Pennsylvania is not as rich as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or Massachusetts, so less tax revenue per capita is spread across a much larger road network, which means the funds are spread thinner.
The worst roads in Pennsylvania tend to be "Pinchot Roads," which are mostly unnumbered rural roads with low traffic counts that PennDOT is somehow responsible for maintaining, instead of the municipal or county governments. Pavement quality on the federal highways and the major state highways in Pennsylvania is at least decent, per International Roughness Index data from 2016:
We have NJ Transit which is a remarkable statewide transit system. What state has the quality of transportation like New Jersey does throughout the ENTIRE state? I cannot think of a single state. In addition, the roads in NJ are unkept very nicely. When I go into neighboring Pennsylvania or up to Massachusetts, which have significantly less tolls, the roads make you get a new alignment.
People, particularly from Pennsylvania, love to complain about New Jersey's high tolls and they will die on that stance. The solution is simple. Just don't come to our beaches? You can avoid going through NJ to south. Going to NY? You can take a 45 minute detour so you don't have to pay our tolls.
Just fyi I am a NJ native who has resided in a few states,some of which also have decent transit systems...and decent roads. States west of Indiana also tend to have better roads,yet still don't have all the tolls that the northeast has. As someone recently shared,the Pennsylvania Turnpike system has some of the highest tolls end to end in the nation so they're not that great either.
How much are they, OP? Our bridge toll here on Highway 520 from the eastside to Seattle and back is variable by time of day, so the more dense the traffic, higher the toll. It's currently $1.25-2.65 with a "good to go" pass on the windshield, or $3.25-$4.65 if paid by mail (license plate scanner and bill mailed). For the "hot lanes" where on can choose to go faster in heavy traffic on busy freeways, it can be much more. Highway 405 from $0.75 to as much as $10. Someone actually changes the toll amount remotely based on time of day and actual congestion at the time. Another bridge, the Tacoma Narrows has 3 amounts, $4.50 with the pass, $5.50 at the toll booths, or $6.50 by mail.
When in another state such as California or in British Columbia we have no pass so have to pay by mail when their cameras catch our license plate, so we have to pay the higher "by mail" amounts. We often set the GPS system to avoid tolls when in other states.
Tolls have the advantage of discouraging travel where they are imposed.
The state of Washington did a study that a $20 toll on the Cascade passes would raise significant revenue to the state of Washington to cover the cost of winter snowplowing and maintenance costs.
It would also reduce SIGNIFICANTLY the climate change effects caused by transportation.
AND for eastern Washington counties it would reduce the costs of providing governmental services such as law enforcement, search and rescue and medical services to western Washington residents.
ONE-THIRD of the guests at the Chelan-Douglas County Jail are residents of western Washington. Almost 95% of the search and rescue costs borne by Chelan County residents are for WESTERN WASHINGTON residents.
Lots of reasons for tolls.
I would love to see a $40 dollars toll (inflation since the original study) on crossing the Cascades to reduce the impact on local county governments and having lower income folks taxed to provide services to rich techies crossing the Cascade passes.
We do not tax the external costs in this country very well. It is time for those that use public resources are taxed and pay their fair share rather than dumping those costs onto rural counties.
The state of Washington did a study that a $20 toll on the Cascade passes would raise significant revenue to the state of Washington to cover the cost of winter snowplowing and maintenance costs.
Lots of reasons for tolls.
I would love to see a $40 dollars toll (inflation since the original study) on crossing the Cascades to reduce the impact on local county governments and having lower income folks taxed to provide services to rich techies crossing the Cascade passes.
Ski resorts will lobby strongly against this as well as the mountain towns that rely on Western Washington tourism.
Also, you're only screwing the middle class with your plan, not the rich techies. People who can afford $2M+ houses in Seattle and the Eastside, can pay $40 for the toll (which is about 3 hours of mortgage interest on their house), but not the renter class in Seattle barely breaking even. If your goal is that the natural resources and amenities of the PNW should only be available to the 1%, then go for it I guess.
Connecticut does not have tolls. It is the only state on the east coast that does not have then. Our state did away with tolls 40 years ago after a horrific accident at a toll station in Stratford.
Over on the Connecticut forum we had a lengthy discussion of tolls as the state was reconsidering them as a source of revenue. That did not happen.
I do hate to tell everyone but tolls or user fees on vehicles and/or highways are inevitable. Currently our country’s transportation system is paid for mostly by taxes on gasoline. With alternative fuel vehicles taking off, those tax revenues are going to disappear. Some new way of funding transportation will need to be found. That could be tolls or a mileage fee. It will be interesting to see what happens. Jay
I can't believe no one has yet brought up the tolls in Houston, and Texas in general. There are 10 dedicated toll roads in Houston alone, and 5 tolled HOV/HOT lanes which run down the middle of the largest freeways. The toll roads are often the only feasible options in traveling around parts of the city, either due to location or additional travel time using alternate roadways (if they exist). A drive around the city can easily run $10 to $20 dollars a day for some commuters. No cash is accepted, users must have an EZ Tag, but there are plate readers to catch those that don't have an electronic tag and bill them later (but at a higher rate than those with a tag). There are heavy fines for those that do not pay on time.
As Texas has a lower gasoline tax than most other states, and no state income tax, tolls are used extensively across the state to fund roadbuilding and maintenance. Tolled HOV/HOT lanes are added to existing freeways to expand the number of lanes, but often the tolled lanes become just as clogged as the adjacent "free" lanes. Many toll roads in Texas are privately owned, or constructed as part of a public/private partnership, and are a "for profit" business.
I read somewhere that the Pennsylvania Turnpike is the highes priced road per mile in the country. I wonder if anyone else can verify that.
Can confirm.
Last time I drove from DC to NYC expect to pay roughly $45-50 in Tolls (round trip)
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