[HN Gopher] Toll roads are spreading in America
___________________________________________________________________
Toll roads are spreading in America
Author : smurda
Score : 85 points
Date : 2025-12-27 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Not only are they spreading, but existing ones have tolls
| constantly increased. Some were built with the idea of the toll
| expiring once the costs of construction were paid off. But
| instead they just become a new state tax source forever,
| subsidizing out of control spending.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Paying for the road-time you use, like any shared resource,
| seems fair to me. It would be nice to see decreases in earned
| income taxes though.
|
| If the retort to this is it impacts poorer people more, then
| that is a separate problem fixed by redistributing more cash,
| so that the wealth gap is smaller.
|
| Edit: to respond to reply about trucks causing more damage to
| road:
|
| Construction costs are one cost of roads, but another cost is
| time cost due to congestion (and resulting effects of delays
| due to congestion). A variable rate toll that also incorporates
| congestion is the ideal way to manage road use, much like
| paying more for electricity or other resources at peak demand
| to modulate demand.
| morkalork wrote:
| Taxes on gas?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Gas is a different shared resource (e.g. it's effects on
| air quality/climate change) than road capacity.
| jtbayly wrote:
| The gas tax is supposedly to pay for roads. Now that they
| are supposedly paying for the roads via tolls, I guess we
| can expect that they will _not_ decrease the gas tax but
| add another tax that supposedly pays for the roads.
| vel0city wrote:
| There are still all the roads that aren't toll roads that
| still need that tax revenue to support.
| Arainach wrote:
| The gas tax has never paid for full road maintenance.
| It's always been subsidized from other funds.
| selectodude wrote:
| Unfortunately, it hasn't seen a big jump in a while, all
| cars are getting heavier and electrified, and gas mileage
| is going up.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| Odometry tax when you register the vehicle, with tiers
| based on the curb weight.
|
| Also higher gas taxes for carbon reasons.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Add a mechanism for folks to file for a rebate for
| distance driven on private roads (an uncle's driveway is
| roughly a quarter mile, so half a mile six days a week 52
| times each year would equal a 156 mile reduction).
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The vast majority of damage on the road is caused by vehicles
| with high axle load, e.g. trucks, especially overloaded
| trucks. IIRC the damage is proportional to _fourth_ power of
| the axle load.
|
| As a consequence, personal cars barely register.
|
| It would make sense to collect toll from trucks only, and
| possibly weigh them all, because overloaded trucks are extra
| damaging to the road.
| dietrichepp wrote:
| If we only had trucks on the road, we'd need less road,
| right? The street where I live could be about a third of
| the width if it were not for personal cars.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| To carry this further, of maintenance taxes for roads were
| structured appropriately, trucks would pay so much that it
| would be prohibitively expensive to ship across the states
| in Semis. We'd likely see a resurgence of rail transport.
| NegativeK wrote:
| > If the retort to this is it impacts poorer people more
|
| We've ended up, though, with a growing wealth gap and more
| tolls.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Roads cost money, costs are just catching up to reality. If
| folks are unhappy now when taxes are at historical lows while
| we accumulate all sorts of off book debt (in this case,
| "deferred maintenance"), further sadness is ahead. If one does
| not care to pay for roads, my recommendation is to live
| somewhere one doesn't need roads, or the per capita costs are
| lower due to density (urban areas, broadly speaking), making
| paying the costs more palatable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund
|
| https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
| ("In 2021, state and local governments spent $206 billion, or 6
| percent of direct general spending, on highways and roads. As a
| share of state and local direct general expenditures, highways
| and roads were the fifth-largest expenditure in 2021.")
|
| https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-04-14/unpave-low-tra...
| ("The U.S. has 4.1 million miles of roads (1.9 million paved,
| 2.2 million gravel). About 3 million miles of roads have less
| than 2,000 vehicles a day, less than 15% of all traffic. The
| paved portion of these low-volume roads ought to be evaluated
| for their potential to be unpaved.")
|
| (very similar to how climate costs are causing agriculture and
| insurance costs to snap to reality, with similar sadness; debts
| coming due)
| fogzen wrote:
| We could fund roads (and everything else) using a progressive
| income tax, so that everyone pays and the wealthiest would
| pay the largest share.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Not opposed, but to achieve this with the current election
| cycle cadence will take at least 5 years, if not longer
| (Congressional cycles). Also, I think Medicare for All is a
| more pressing use of tax revenue than pouring good money
| after bad into sprawl infrastructure that will continue to
| decline in use as rural America hollows out and people keep
| moving to urban cores. To observe this, overlay predicted
| rural America population decline with road infrastructure,
| which you can also use to forecast which road
| infrastructure we should retreat from maintaining over
| time.
|
| "Everyone wants civilization but nobody wants to pay taxes"
| is a hard concept to solve for, most especially when those
| with nothing or no tax liability advocate for the
| wealthiest from a failed mental model.
| ghaff wrote:
| I assume automatic tolls via transponders tend to make tolls a
| lot less transparent in practice.
| kotaKat wrote:
| _laughs in New York I-90_
|
| Yep. It's great that I have to pay to use this stretch of I-90
| and then on top of that if I end up at the wrong rest area on a
| Sunday I won't be able to access every vendor (because they
| picked Chick-Fil-A at some locations).
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| As my grandfather wisely observed: there's no such thing as a
| temporary tax. I have seen this to be true in my own lifetime,
| as each and every time a "temporary" tax increase would expire
| it gets extended.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| https://archive.is/ZvPtX
| arjie wrote:
| Two things I like are:
|
| * HOT lanes in the Bay Area: they allocate demand efficiently and
| subsidize multi-people transport. I wish there were more.
|
| * Toll roads in Texas: you can take the slip roads almost
| everywhere but they're slow. The highways were fast but you had
| to pay.
|
| Overall, I think fare at point of use is a great structure. In
| the past we couldn't enforce it but now we can do this for more
| things.
|
| The only problem is that we've decided that impounding cars that
| don't have license plates or which have license plate covers is
| unacceptable because the poor do this most frequently. I hope we
| will clean up enforcement and then we will have the right
| incentives here.
| everforward wrote:
| I don't have an issue with HOT lanes, but I'm not a big fan of
| the toll roads in Texas.
|
| I don't like that it creates separate classes of infrastructure
| for citizens based on their ability to pay. Even the non-toll
| highways had an HOT-like lane you paid per-use to drive on that
| was often significantly faster than the free lanes.
|
| It makes a system where I suspect many people won't want to pay
| to upgrade the free infrastructure because they don't use it,
| and people who can't afford the daily tolls waste even more
| time in traffic. The fast pass lane are even worse because they
| cannibalize lanes that could be used to alleviate general
| traffic (and were typically sparsely used).
|
| The tolls were substantial for some people. $3-$8 a day on toll
| roads (ie no fast pass lane). At $8 a day, that'd be $40 a
| week, ~$160/month. That's nearly 20% of the weekly pre-tax
| income of someone making Austin's $22/hr minimum wage.
| spwa4 wrote:
| > I don't like that it creates separate classes of
| infrastructure for citizens based on their ability to pay.
| Even the non-toll highways had an HOT-like lane you paid per-
| use to drive on that was often significantly faster than the
| free lanes.
|
| But ... government income is largely dependent on the rich,
| and government spending largely benefits the poor. This is
| what is always forgotten about it. The reason debt is such a
| thorny issue is that debt _really_ benefited the poor. And
| over time, so will these toll roads.
|
| The reason toll roads benefit the poor is that the rich don't
| travel anyways, and this gives extra economic options to the
| poor. A large portion will figure out how to use this extra
| economic option (because that was thoroughly checked before
| the bridge was even built, and it wouldn't have been built if
| the answer wasn't that they would)
|
| So both the building of the bridge, and the use of it almost
| exclusively benefit the poor.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| The rich may travel on the toll roads, but they certainly
| benefit from those who do.
| blauditore wrote:
| If you want to disincentivize usage of certain things, money
| is generally the most effective option. Yes, some rich folks
| won't be bothered, but even fairly low amounts make most
| people think twice. Too many cars are a problem in many parts
| of the world, for a number of reasons (noise, smog, traffic
| jams, or parking space in cities), so nudging people towards
| alternative usage patterns is worthwhile in my opinion.
| h2zizzle wrote:
| Alternatives are the most effective option. Tolls just make
| laws the rich don't have to obey and conditions they don't
| have to experience. Aggregate suffering isn't lowered, just
| shifted to the poor.
|
| If you want cars off the road, you tax rich people and
| build trains and bike lanes, and shut down cynical RTO.
| Full stop.
| simondotau wrote:
| It's not that simple. For trains to be a complete
| solution you need walkable cities, and high density
| transport-oriented residential construction near
| stations.
|
| This is almost diametrically opposite to parking-oriented
| cities and sprawling suburbia.
| LexiMax wrote:
| The best time for a city to invest in making their city
| walkable and public-transportation-able is decades ago.
| The second best time for a city to invest in making their
| city walkable and public-transportation-able is now.
| hopelite wrote:
| You clearly have no idea the nature of the problem you
| want to solve with such erroneous platitudes. But it's
| probably not even your fault you are ignorant of the
| reality of the matter as you advocate for squeezing
| harder to get blood from a stone; your statement
| illustrates that you are a victim of a delusion and
| psychological abuse that has been perpetrated upon the
| whole western world for more than a century now, so of
| course after everything you know from your very first
| breath promoting a delusional fantasy, you would also
| have that world view since it is post 1984 after all.
| lokar wrote:
| Localities large and small have been moving towards
| higher density, walkable and transit oriented development
| for years now. It's happening, and it works.
| bluGill wrote:
| Suburbs are often plenty dense for great transit if you
| give great. Howeveriwhen transit is as bad as most get it
| is no wonder nobody uses it
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > If you want cars off the road, you tax rich people and
| build trains and bike lanes, and shut down cynical RTO.
| Full stop.
|
| The first two smell like communism, the last massively
| harms the rich people and their playthings (REITs - real
| estate investment trusts). Won't happen, not in countries
| where Big Money is pulling the strings (i.e. the US,
| Germany and UK).
| lovich wrote:
| If levying taxes and using those tax receipts to build
| infrastructure is enough to smell like communism to you,
| I have unfortunate news to tell you about how every
| single government on the planet operates
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Couldn't disagree more. People should be able to pay more for
| use of better infrastructure. If $3-$8 a day isn't worth it
| for you, there's a free option that's totally acceptable.
| salawat wrote:
| See, here's the thing. Definition of acceptable isn't up to
| you. It's up to the people who have no other choice but to
| use it.
| The_President wrote:
| The fastest highway in the United States is the 85 mph
| controlled access public-private venture toll road east of
| Austin. State income tax is not a thing in Texas, and that
| road would have otherwise not been completed at the price or
| schedule it was built on without the backing of the private
| company that built it.
| lokar wrote:
| I'm not sure what your point is, can you explain?
| bob1029 wrote:
| Houston would be unlivable without toll roads in 2025. The
| medical center would collapse overnight. The SH288 toll has
| probably indirectly saved more lives than any other toll
| project in the state. Medical professionals can reliably get
| between their suburban homes and their patients in ~constant
| time now.
|
| It's maybe not "fair" that some people can use this option
| indiscriminately every day, but at least it is an option that
| _everyone_ has access to. There 's no physical barrier stopping
| you from using the Texas toll roads if you really needed to in
| an emergency. All that will happen is a bill will appear in
| your mailbox about 30 days later. If you choose to not pay it,
| the chances something bad will happen are approximately zero.
| dangus wrote:
| Of course, this project cost $2.1 billion, including $815
| million to build the toll lanes in the freeway's center.
|
| And it could be made ineffective as regional expansion
| continues. As soon as enough people who are willing to pay
| the toll saturates capacity you end up with the same issue
| ("just one more lane bro"). I see this all the time in the DC
| metro area's toll express lanes that often save no
| significant time.
|
| Another effective way to control highway congestion is to get
| people off of highways and invest in your transit system,
| make it better than driving so that people don't drive as
| often.
|
| But maybe Houston is too far gone for that.
|
| For comparison, the Chicago red line extension project adds 5
| miles of heavy rail for about twice the cost, so 4x more per
| mile. But the Houston toll lane project doesn't do anything
| positive for adjacent property values like new rail stations
| do. Chicago will get money back from more property taxes and
| the new stations will relieve traffic on the Dan Ryan.
|
| Transit lines get _faster_ as ridership increases due to the
| ability to increase schedule frequency, the exact opposite of
| highways.
|
| I am not saying Houston should magically turn into 1800s-era
| urban fabric but maybe some decent park and ride commuter
| transit would be a start? There are cities in Texas with 6
| figure populations that have NO public bus system.
| axiolite wrote:
| > As soon as enough people who are willing to pay the toll
| saturates capacity you end up with the same issue ("just
| one more lane bro").
|
| Increase the toll prices to reduce congestion, increase the
| number of buses on that route, and use some of the money
| for either expanding the road or building another more-or-
| less parallel road.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > Increase the toll prices to reduce congestion
|
| This stretch of road is already using congestion/dynamic
| pricing. I've never had to go slower than 85mph the
| entire way.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >Wouldn't fast efficient light rail been generally better?
|
| Light rail has been there since before the toll lanes.
|
| This is not a small medical center, some of the hospitals
| are skyscrapers.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Wouldn't fast efficient light rail been generally better?
| From a social and economic perspective it would be more
| efficient. The real problem with that only tends to be
| political, namely there is a strange aversion to properly
| built public infrastructure
| krapp wrote:
| >there is a strange aversion to properly built public
| infrastructure
|
| It costs money which taxpayers don't want to pay (unless it
| benefits them personally,) it requires long term planning
| which governments are incapable of, and it smells like
| socialism.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| In the medical scenario, having medical workers sit around
| waiting for the train after they've driven to the station
| would be a problem if their presence is needed quickly. Or
| did you also want everyone to cram into high rises
| clustered around stations?
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I live in the Bay Area and hate HOV lanes. I can look over and
| see that more than half of the drivers are in violation, and
| yet it is effectively unenforced. It is a system that punishes
| people willing to follow the rules.
|
| Asking someone to waste maybe up to an hour of their life
| everyday to sit there and watch people willing to break the
| rules speed by and get to be home early with their families
| breeds massive resentment, and anger. It encourages people to
| abandon all sorts of social contracts.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Can't you pay to be in the HOV lane?
|
| Seems like a pretty ideal system. Having that extra lane
| wouldn't solve any issues for most drivers. For high
| occupancy or those willing to pay, it does.
| SkiFire13 wrote:
| I think you missed this point:
|
| > I can look over and see that more than half of the
| drivers are in violation, and yet it is effectively
| unenforced.
| thayne wrote:
| How do you know that those people aren't paying?
|
| OTOH, I don't know how you could effectively enforce that
| single occupant vehicles are paying.
| kluikens wrote:
| The FasTrak scanners above the lane flash the occupancy
| setting (1, 2, or 3+) on the driver's transponder. It's
| easy to observe cheating single-occupant vehicles because
| the flashed number is 3 (a toll-free rate).
|
| For automated enforcement, there's prior art in red light
| camera systems that mail tickets/violations to the
| registered vehicle owner.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| When I worked for a tollway (not SF so maybe they're
| different), toll violations were enforced by mailing a
| ticket to the offender after the fact. There weren't any
| patrols out on the road looking for violators. Don't pay
| the fine (plus the toll), don't get to renew your license
| plates. We had agreements with some other states for
| enforcement against their vehicles in our state. The
| cameras rarely were unable to get a good enough view of
| the license plate for the CSRs to not be able to find out
| whose vehicle it was.
| coldtea wrote:
| So basically just another systemic benefit to the more well
| off
| lokar wrote:
| In most situations the restricted lane (regardless of how
| you pick who gets to use it), does in fact benefit everyone
| else.
|
| Under high congestion traffic throughput plummets.
| Restricted access to one or more lanes lets you keep them
| flowing at near the peak, increasing the overall throughput
| of the system by much more than one of the congested lanes.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| ^ There's a deep lesson in this comment.
| nubg wrote:
| Indeed. Benevolent introverts too often get the short stick
| for sticking to rules.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I think the benelovent introvert being discussed seems to
| have overlooked
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTrak
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| > It is a system that punishes people willing to follow the
| rules.
|
| Every system?
| tshaddox wrote:
| To be fair, this is already true of driving in general. Often
| in commuter traffic you'll see one guy driving extremely
| unsafely, darting in and out of lanes passing everyone as
| fast as they can. You _know_ this person does this every day
| for years, saving time by putting everyone else in danger.
| lokar wrote:
| Saving a tiny amount of time
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| You can't see that they're in violation: the RF transponder
| effects compliance and you pay when using the lane, if you're
| talking about the lanes i used to use to great effect, for
| money.
|
| ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTrak )
| Retric wrote:
| The FasTrak system shows the occupancy setting, it's
| obvious when people are displaying the wrong setting.
| creato wrote:
| Does that setting actually matter? When I lived in the
| area that had these, I always forgot to set it when the
| number of passengers in my car changed. I never saw any
| difference. The charge is the same.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Depends on the area. The 210 in Los Angeles allows you to
| jump on the toll-lanes for free if you have >= 3 people
| in the car.
|
| And I think at certain times it's only >= 2 people.
| Retric wrote:
| It makes a difference in some locations such as I-580
| 5am-8pm, where you actually being charged full price on
| any of these roads or bridges:
| https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/help/using-your-
| fastrak-fl...
|
| Or did you just see the full price and assumed that's
| what you paid.
| lokar wrote:
| I really wish we would have special enforcement for just this
| (and transit), and just adjust the fines and staffing levels
| until enforcement breaks even on costs, and evasion is
| minimal.
|
| And make the fines based on income.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > you can take the slip roads almost everywhere but they're
| slow.
|
| We have that problem here in Germany. The roads aren't just
| slow - the people _living_ in the towns these roads run through
| are going through hell because they are affected massively. Can
| 't safely cross the road, emergency response vehicles take
| ages, an insane amount of noise and emissions (because vehicles
| near idle make much more toxic exhaust when at low load and
| thus temperature), more brake and tire dust... Austria was fed
| up years ago, Bavaria recently followed suit [1].
|
| [1] https://www.adac.de/der-
| adac/regionalclubs/suedbayern/news/a...
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| In NYC it's the police that have been obfuscating their plate
| number for a long time, not just poor people.
| https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/04/19/if-nypd-is-cracking-d...
| The_President wrote:
| These are not commonly called slip roads in Texas - the term is
| feeder road. Most feeder roads in the metro areas are lined
| with business or multifamily residential frontage.
| jsight wrote:
| I don't necessarily see this as a bad trend. Eventually a tax on
| mileage and weight would make the most sense vs the current
| attempts to use fuel taxes as a proxy for those things.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| Why do we need public funds to build a private authority that
| pays people absurd amounts of money who don't actually do
| anything instead of just you know.... building the road like we
| always have. For the public.
|
| If we're going to spend the money anyways why do we need
| private profits?
|
| Furthermore, just tax the vehicles that are actually doing
| damage to the roads. i.e., trucks.
|
| A honda civic barely does anything to a road. Where a semi-
| truck is EXPONENTIALLY more damaging.
| dietrichepp wrote:
| The civic barely does anything to a road, except require its
| existence and maintenance, and it turns out that roads are
| expensive to build and maintain (even if only damaged by
| weather).
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| A highway is not a public good. It is a publicly subsidized
| good for private consumption.
|
| Can I use the highway if I don't have a car? (Barely)
|
| Can I use it for anything non driving related (like a
| downtown street where lanes can be repurposed for outdoor
| seating)? No
|
| I agree with you on what does the majority of the damage.
| morkalork wrote:
| I don't understand, there are plenty of other things the
| public pays for that you can't use for other, unintended
| purposes. You can't fly your hobby drone out of a public
| airport just because you want.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Apparently under your definition of a public good, there's
| no such thing.
| xnx wrote:
| > Can I use the highway if I don't have a car?
|
| Can I use the schools if I don't have a child?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I'd argue there should be some access to school
| facilities by the public if you want to call them
| "public". Otherwise it's about as public as the police
| department.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| In the U.S. you can definitely use school facilities
| after hours (such as the fields, and even some buildings,
| etc).
|
| The primary concern with not allowing access at any time
| of day to the general public is of course, the children.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I'm not aware of any public schools in my area that would
| allow me to, e.g., use the basketball court or soccer
| field after school hours or on the weekends.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| Have you tried? I've certainly been able to. And I'm
| definitely not alone in having used those facilities.
| I've used them personally and for ad-hoc sport events
| (lacrosse isn't exactly popular in the area I'm in right
| now).
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Not recently, though I have observed locked doors and
| gates that make it pretty difficult to use. If your
| caveat is you need to call ahead to organize an event
| that's a pretty different use-case from what I'd like to
| do, which is to use them very casually and occasionally.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| I've never called ahead or anything like that. There are
| a fair amount of people using them on the weekends, as
| far as I've seen.
|
| There is one school that definitely is gated off, but
| that's because it's near a major point of interest and I
| can only assume they're worried about non-community
| members damaging the property.
| bombcar wrote:
| That probably says more about the area you live in than
| the public schools.
|
| Around here the grounds are not only open outside of
| school hours, but explicitly so (they have closing hours
| posted: 9PM).
| vel0city wrote:
| > you can definitely use school facilities after hours
|
| Aside from a few things like some playgrounds shared with
| public parks next door this has often been pretty untrue.
| I've definitely had police escort me off school
| basketball courts when school isn't in session, the
| natatoriums haven't had much public access, it's not like
| the school libraries are open after hours, etc.
|
| I'm sure some places are more open and some are less
| open, I wouldn't say you can "definitely" use them.
| scoofy wrote:
| I mean, if we're going to do it this way, then have fun
| paying the full cost of my _very expensive_ public
| transit system.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| Necessary public infrastructure that is paid for with tax
| dollars is not a public good?
|
| And just in case this fact is being lost / forgotten: Toll
| roads are primarily, originally funded through tax dollars
| but are disingenuously structured in a way these bozos can
| go "see, it's not actually tax dollars" (it is). The same
| exact dollars that should be used to build fully public,
| free roads are instead used to privatize public
| infrastructure.
|
| There has never been a time where a toll raid has failed
| and the losses were treated as private. The bonds magically
| get repaid (to the right people, of course).
|
| It's all tax dollars in the end, one way or another.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Toll roads are primarily, originally funded through tax
| dollars
|
| This is untrue of all the toll roads I've regularly
| driven in multiple cities in the US. Their construction
| was funded through bonds which are paid back from the
| toll revenues.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| why did you ignore my other statements that expressly
| address this "viewpoint."
|
| The bonds are issued either by the authority itself or
| some other agency expressly delegated to issue those
| bonds.
|
| The accounting is done EXPRESSLY with the knowledge of
| the states general fund, even though there's a "wink
| wink" don't use the tax dollars to """directly""" pay for
| these bonds.
|
| Don't believe me? Look at the financial reports yourself.
|
| There is zero point in the fuzzy accounting other than to
| make something that simply should be public, private, and
| allow grifters to make a buck or two off it.
|
| In EVERY CASE of a failed toll road the major bond
| holders have all been made whole through the state
| directly or indirectly.
|
| If you have the money, investing in a toll road is the
| easiest way to make lots of money with 0 risk.
|
| But you can only do that if the entity issues those bonds
| "knows" and "selects" you. :)
| vel0city wrote:
| > Look at the financial reports yourself
|
| I have for the toll roads I drive on. It shows the debt
| payments being paid by the toll revenues, not other state
| taxes.
|
| > In EVERY CASE of a failed toll road the major bond
| holders have all been made whole through the state
| directly or indirectly.
|
| Sure, the toll agencies are ultimately a creature of the
| state but it's incorrect (a lie?) to argue it's _funded
| primarily, originally through tax dollars_ , at least for
| the toll roads I drive on. What's the rate of these
| failures? What's the actual percentage of these bonds
| being paid by toll revenues versus failing and the states
| being on the hook? Once again you said it's _primarily_
| and _originally_. Being paid because the bond failed to
| be paid back by toll revenues isn 't the original payment
| plan, and unless it's happening most of the time it's not
| the primary way of those bonds being paid.
|
| > make something that simply should be public, private
|
| The toll roads I'm talking about are public.
|
| > address this "viewpoint."
|
| This "viewpoint" is otherwise known as "reality".
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| >I have for the toll roads I drive on.
|
| Link me so I can draw some circles for you.
|
| > to argue it's funded primarily, originally through tax
| dollars
|
| Do you know how bonds work? It's an isomorphic operation.
| A state entity is issuing bonds out to creditors. A lot
| of those major creditors will also be secured creditors.
|
| It's the same thing, just covered under a sleight of hand
| trick.
|
| So the state borrows money from a select few major
| creditors but it's "wink wink" not against the full faith
| and credit of the state, then regulates a consumption tax
| on the road, and the investors and authority get a slice
| of the pie.
|
| For what purpose?
|
| And when the toll roads fail either the creditors are
| paid out either through the state out right buying the
| road or allowing the debt to be a tax write off over X
| amount of time.
|
| >This "viewpoint" is otherwise known as "reality".
|
| This American brainworm is exhausting, ngl. Buddy you're
| getting bamboozled by a few vocab words and a 3 step
| accounting trick, please don't presume to talk to anyone
| about reality.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Link me so I can draw some circles for you.
|
| https://www.ntta.org/sites/default/files/2025-06/06-27-20
| 25_...
|
| > then regulates a consumption tax on the road
|
| Yeah, the toll. One assumes you're not talking about the
| toll but other tax revenues when you're complaining about
| tax payers paying for the road. Obviously the tolls go to
| pay for the toll road, so what's the point otherwise
| about talking about the taxpayers paying for it?
|
| Buddy it's really exhausting ngl having people always
| assume every toll organization is a private enterprise.
| It's not just a 3 step accounting trick, please don't
| presume you know how every toll arrangement is made.
|
| And if your point is the idea of government bonds going
| to private investors, well, how do you think the freeways
| are financed? How does it make a difference then if it's
| a freeway or a toll road or a library or a playground?
| It's all financed in largely the same way. Government
| bonds issues to selected investors.
| silotis wrote:
| "Public good" is a term of art in economics which means a
| good is both non-excludable (it is impractical to control
| who benefits from it) and non-rivalrous (one person
| benefiting does not prevent others from also benefiting).
|
| Roads are clearly rivalrous and while it's often
| impractical to prevent non-payers from entering a toll
| road, one can certainly record them and met penalties
| after the fact to discourage it.
|
| So no, roads are not a public good.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| If roads are "rivalrous" then so is literally everything
| else.
| silotis wrote:
| Roads are rivalrous because too many people using them
| causes a traffic jam. Seriously go read the Wikipedia
| article on the subject.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _roads are not a public good_
|
| You're both right. Roads can be an impure public good.
|
| At low traffic loading, they are not rivalrous and can be
| modelled as a public good. At high traffic loading they
| become rivalrous and thus closer to a common-pool
| resource.
|
| If roads are made excludable, they resemble a club or
| even private group.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The US interstates move military equipment across the
| country without needing to deal with railroad bottlenecks.
| It is a public good. Just like GPS, it has ancillary civic
| functions but it still serves its original purpose.
| scoofy wrote:
| I mean, that's the _de jure_ purpose, but that 's really
| a nonsensical point to make here. We're not talking about
| one controlled access route with two lanes in both
| directions to move tanks around.
|
| We're talking about 10 lane monstrosities, with 8 or more
| flyovers, standing 20 stories high in places like in
| Houston and Dallas.
| jsight wrote:
| The means of collection and treatment of it as something
| other than tax revenue are problematic for sure. Those should
| be solvable problems, though.
|
| Your point about semi-truck damage vs lighter vehicles is
| exactly why I think moving in that direction is so useful.
| The most fair taxation would accurately take both that aspect
| and actual miles driven into account.
| bbarn wrote:
| Except the impact of even gas prices going up has added to
| costs in basically anything delivered by truck. Every tax
| you put on that just eventually ends up in consumer hands.
| hamdingers wrote:
| > A honda civic barely does anything to a road. Where a semi-
| truck is EXPONENTIALLY more damaging.
|
| Similarly, a Honda Civic is ~360 million times more damaging
| to the road than a bicycle, according to the fourth power
| law.
|
| No reasonable fee structure should let car drivers use roads
| for free.
|
| And that's before we get into the amount of valuable public
| land car drivers use for personal storage.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Not literally exponentially, but the damage is proportional
| to the FOURTH power of the axle load. Imagine how expensive
| shipping would've become overnight if all these trucks had to
| pay their fair share and passed the costs to their customers.
|
| Honda Civic weighs 0.7t per axle, or 0.24tttt of wear.
|
| F-150 weighs 0.9t per axle, or 0.65tttt of wear.
|
| A school bus weighs 7.5t per axle, or 3164tttt of wear.
| That's more than thirteen thousand Honda Civics' worth of
| road damage. Imagine the driver of the Honda had to pay 1c
| per mile. The school bus would have to pay $130 per mile.
| Yes, it's carrying 78 passengers, so the cost would be $1.67
| per mile per student, but I think most people would just
| drive their kids to school.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| There's no more toll booths. It's a big step function change in
| viability of toll roads.
| nfw2 wrote:
| Toll roads are good economics. If a choice has negative
| externalities (more traffic, more pollution, road damage), tax
| it.
| kiernanmcgowan wrote:
| It's also a direct usage tax to support road maintenance.
| Heavier users of the road ways end up contributing more to the
| maintenance of the public good.
|
| We had a proxy for that via gasoline taxes but with EV becoming
| more common we need to find a replacement for that revenue.
| haskellandrust wrote:
| The gas tax hasn't kept up with inflation, EVs are only a
| secondary contributor to the shortfall. Most states have been
| leeching from their general funds to keep up with highway
| maintenance. California has raised theres fair aggressively,
| though.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| There are several states that have an EV registration
| surcharge that replaces gas tax. It's not popular with the
| pro-EV crowd.
| vel0city wrote:
| I'm fine with a decently fair registration tax to offset
| the gas taxes, but the one in my state is the equivalent of
| 1,000 gallons of gas for the state gas taxes. If the car
| was a 35mpg hybrid that would be 35,000mi of equivalent
| driving. This is incredibly unfair.
| Loughla wrote:
| If I owned an ev for 3 years, the tax means I save money.
| vel0city wrote:
| This is a _yearly_ tax. So that would be the same as
| 105,000mi in three years meanwhile the average car
| probably only drove ~37,500 in that time period.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| 35,000 mi of driving is not anywhere near out of the
| question if you're a daily commuter who takes road trips
| once in a while. If you're driving a truck or a non-
| hybrid, it's also a lot less mileage. It sounds like this
| is actually close to what you would be expected to use.
| vel0city wrote:
| It's _far_ away from the average of around 12,000. Few
| cars drive 35,000mi.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The average driver also doesn't get 35 mpg driving
| regularly. The average driver probably gets around 20
| mpg, and that would make this distance about 15000 mi.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| > _With that information, the British newspaper
| calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could
| expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars._
|
| If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be
| equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes
| equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.
|
| Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-
| damage-ro...
| mikestew wrote:
| Just because a small percentage of drivers drive that
| much each year doesn't make it a reasonable number for
| the general case.
|
| _It sounds like this is actually close to what you would
| be expected to use._
|
| Not even close to what the average driver drives.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The average American driver gets about 25 mpg and drives
| about 15-20k miles. That's exactly in line with the tax
| rate here.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| > _With that information, the British newspaper
| calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could
| expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars._
|
| If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be
| equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes
| equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.
|
| Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-
| damage-ro...
| caseysoftware wrote:
| The EV tax applies to people who a) casue a
| disproportionate amount of wear & tear on the roads vs
| ICE vehicles and b) are generally higher income in the
| state.
|
| When you look at taxation from a "charge the people who
| use it" or the "the rich should pay more" perspective,
| this appears to address both.
|
| Is the problem simply that you want to pay less taxes?
| notatoad wrote:
| it's pretty silly to have a tax that incentivizes the
| opposite behaviour to what you want. registration
| surcharges benefit the people who drive the most, at the
| expense of the people who drive the least.
|
| if you're trying to pay for wear and tear on the roads, or
| reduce congestion, making people feel like they have to
| "get their moneys worth" on the registration surcharge
| really isn't helping.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Most states include higher tag fees for EVs. I pay way more
| in the EV fee than I would have paid in gas taxes considering
| I don't drive that much. Trucks and other heavy users dwarf
| car traffic by far though, and those extra logistic costs (if
| charged by weight) would show up as increased cost of goods.
| tpm wrote:
| The UK is creating a new pay-per-mile EV duty from 2028 to
| fix this.
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm not sure that use taxes really support road maintenance,
| at least in my state. The reason is that money is fungible,
| and the income from use taxes can be offset by a reduction in
| support from the general fund.
| stefan_ wrote:
| But the economics of collecting them suck. A tax is a lot
| easier and much less "enshittifying" the daily experience.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| But a tax is not targeted to where the usage occurs. Tolls
| allowed highways with more usage to get more revenue to save
| up for the more frequent maintenance.
| survirtual wrote:
| Yeah nice in theory but the reality is far from this.
|
| In order to implement tolls, you need several components
| involving middlemen. This includes frontend software,
| backend, payment processing, transponder management, all
| the hardware involved, support staff, sometimes toll
| station staff, among other things.
|
| These toll companies are often owned by foreign companies
| that are in it for the long haul, offering sweet deals up
| front then gradually charging more and more with no end in
| sight, as roads diminish in quality and rest stops fall
| into disarray.
|
| Toll roads are a scam, a regressive tax on the working
| class, and downright immoral. We should not limit the
| mobility of people.
| haskellandrust wrote:
| What do you mean by "the economics" here? I barely drive but
| I have a toll transponder, I set it up once and haven't
| thought about it since.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I don't even have a toll transponder, OCR these days is
| good enough to detect your plate number and charge the
| linked account.
| esrauch wrote:
| Don't they charge you more if you do pay-by-plate though?
| I always see signs that have a price with local ez-pass,
| a higher price with out-of-state ez-pass, and an even
| higher price for pay-by-plate.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Ez pass billing is all over the place, each
| state/authority does whatever it wants.
|
| If you reg a secondary car's plate to an ezpass account
| without using the transponder, a lot of states will just
| think it was a read fail and charge you the regular rate
| but it depends.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes, bill for plate OCR is typically a lot more expensive
| in addition to having to logon to a site etc.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| 25 cents for me. I can get a sticker for $5 sticker that
| negates that (no transponder I think for Seattle's first
| 520 bridge, maybe for carpools?). Oh, supposedly the
| sticker is a transponder, so I can save 25 cents if I buy
| a $5 sticker. Even though I don't use the bridge that
| often, it makes sense to buy.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Ussally if you don't have an account they charge you
| more. But at least for the systems in my area they'll
| charge your account wether you have your toll transponder
| or not (because they OCR your plate and charge the linked
| account)
| ghaff wrote:
| Toll collection used to be much worse in terms of
| collection efficiency (revenue-cost)--perhaps 50% as I
| understand it. With all the automated toll booths I assume
| it's much better today.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Problem is, it's not a tax. It's a handout to private companies
| that take advantage of taxpayers fronting the construction cost
| in a lot of cases. We had one here paid for by tax payers but
| then leased to a company for some low dollar amount and they
| keep most of the money.
|
| It's just another form of rent seeking.
|
| Now, gov run tolls seem like a good idea in areas where
| congestion needs to be managed. But also needs to be careful
| not to be a secret tax on the poor.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Fwiw in the Bay Area I thought it was a private company but
| turns out it's government run with Fastrak operated by The
| Bay Area Transportation Authority (BATA) in partnership with
| The California Department of Transportation and The
| California Highway Patrol (not sure why CHP is involved but
| they probably get some kickback of the revenue stream in
| exchange for some enforcement).
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| CHP probably provides accident response services to the
| roads
| SoftTalker wrote:
| They are very regressive unless there are income-based credits,
| which adds administrative complexity.
|
| Rich people pay the tolls without a second thought. For the
| poor they are yet another obstacle to trying to make ends meet.
| survirtual wrote:
| Correct.
|
| Tolls are a regressive tax on the working class. The rich
| don't even need to use the roads as much because they have
| other people delivering for them. When they need the road
| system, the tolls are nothing to them.
|
| The working class, which are generally required to be driving
| to survive, are left holding the bag for tolls. In places
| with bad public transit, tolls are just a forced wealth
| transfer from working class to private firms managing the
| tolls.
| nfw2 wrote:
| All the statistics I've been able to find point to higher
| toll road usage among higher income people, not less.
| nosianu wrote:
| Which may already be a sign of ability to pay? Not that I
| will argue against the right of US Americans to have a
| country that gets more and more divided by "class"
| defined by money, an interesting if not very ethical
| experiment for sure.
|
| The very well-known in Germany satiric news website "Der
| Postillion" had an interesting provocative piece just
| yesterday (German, but auto-translate takes care of
| that): https://www.der-
| postillon.com/2023/12/weihnachtsmann-ungerec... --
| "Schlimmer Verdacht: Bevorzugt der Weihnachtsmann die
| Kinder reicher Eltern?" ("A disturbing suspicion: Does
| Santa Claus favor the children of wealthy parents?")
|
| Being able to get to places by car is one of the most
| basic needs in the US. I think it leads to cementing the
| monetary status quo and monetary class affiliation when
| that becomes even more dependent on how much money one
| can spend on it. A nicer car being more expensive is fine
| in that regard, it does not get you from A to B much or
| any faster than the cheap one. Being able to choose roads
| or lanes that will take you there much faster is
| different.
|
| It removes one's personal "hard work" contribution to
| success if more and more of it is out of your control -
| after all, how much money you start the game of life with
| is nothing one has control over. Maybe making that kind
| of mechanism worse is not the best idea in the long term.
| Unless we are really aiming for what all the dystopia
| movies and anime have been showing us.
|
| There are also tons and tons of indirect effects. For
| example, I would make the claim that wealthy shareholders
| benefit a lot more from roads than poor people, even when
| they don't drive, since the companies they own and the
| entire economy needs them. The poorer people driving to
| work "paying their share" does not look so clearly
| justified to me, unless one believes that their salaries
| are perfect indications of their role in value creation.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| > The very well-known in Germany satiric news website
| "Der Postillion" had an interesting provocative piece
| just yesterday (German, but auto-translate takes care of
| that): https://www.der-
| postillon.com/2023/12/weihnachtsmann-ungerec... --
| "Schlimmer Verdacht: Bevorzugt der Weihnachtsmann die
| Kinder reicher Eltern?" ("A disturbing suspicion: Does
| Santa Claus favor the children of wealthy parents?")
|
| Canadian stand-up comedian Casually Explained (I don't
| actually know if he stands up to record his videos) had
| basically the same joke a few days before them.
| metalman wrote:
| Tolls and public transit fares are regressive.
|
| We have removed all tolls here in Nova Scotia,including for
| small car ferry's , were not rich or populous,but are
| building out our infrastructure bit by bit to facilitate
| ease of transport and the prevention of accidents and
| traffic jams. The other thing they added are info signs
| accross the main hyways comming in, giving times for the
| main transit routes, making it easy to redirect , 45 MIN!,
| yikes! sounds like coffee and grocerie shopping to me! It
| has realy made a huge difference getting around the city
| and has opened up options for travelling rural routes that
| have ferries.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The people who use something should pay for its upkeep. It
| doesn't matter if that makes it a "regressive" tax. If you
| are a daily user of a road, you should pay more for its
| upkeep than someone who doesn't use the road.
| thfuran wrote:
| >The people who use something should pay for its upkeep
|
| Why? That doesn't seem like a good way to run society.
| axiolite wrote:
| Why should a delivery driver pay the toll for the road to
| my house, and not me? Why should I be able to exploit
| flat-rate product pricing like that and skim some money
| from all customers of the delivery service?
|
| Why should I pay the toll to drive to a friend's house?
| They're the one getting the benefit out of having easy
| access to transportation.
|
| What if my taxes pay for all the roads in my town, while
| the neighboring town chooses to implement tolls instead?
| Why should I get double-taxed? Prisoner's dilemma and
| race-to-the-bottom?
|
| Why should I have to deal with having my license plate
| stolen, and police time wasted (who are paid out of
| taxes), because of people who don't pay the tolls?
| tshaddox wrote:
| Why stop there? Why should I pay for my own food, given
| that my employer, friends, and family benefit from me
| being well nourished?
| nfw2 wrote:
| Edited because I admit original statement below is incorrect.
|
| "You could say they are a flat tax since every driver pays
| the same per usage. You could even argue it is a progressive
| tax since richer people use toll roads more. The only way you
| CAN'T describe a toll is a regressive tax. Words have
| meaning."
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| If you read the literature[1], they're regressive - less
| regressive than sales tax, but still regressive despite
| being utilized more by higher income drivers.
|
| https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/16892
| NietzscheanNull wrote:
| This is completely incorrect. A flat tax has a constant tax
| _rate_ , which is why it's often referred to as a
| "proportional tax." Under a true flat tax system, everyone
| pays the same _percentage_ of their income.
|
| A toll is absolutely regressive because the burden it
| imposes is constant, _irrespective of income_ ; poorer
| individuals will pay a proportionally higher percentage of
| their income than wealthier counterparts. As income
| increases the "effective rate" asymptotically approaches
| zero, which is regressive by definition.
| nfw2 wrote:
| Good point, I've edited my comment to clarify that it is
| incorrect
| levocardia wrote:
| This is just a general argument against constant prices for
| everything though. Charging $1/lb for bananas is regressive.
| Charging $3/gallon for gas is regressive. Charging $10 for a
| t-shirt is regressive. Etc...
| MengerSponge wrote:
| "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and
| poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets,
| and to steal bread."
|
| https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France
| axiolite wrote:
| > This is just a general argument against constant prices
| for everything though.
|
| Maybe EVERYTHING shouldn't BE "constant prices". Maybe
| where there are practical alternatives to constant pricing,
| those should be preferred and used.
|
| > Charging $10 for a t-shirt is regressive.
|
| No. Not unless there is only 1 type of t-shirt in the world
| available. If I'm poor I can go find cheaper t-shirts
| either less stylish, poorer quality, from a generic brand,
| from a discount retailer, second-hand (used), packaged in
| bulk, etc., or maybe wait around for a sale on the t-shirt.
| derektank wrote:
| Besides price signals, what other tools are available to
| communicate local knowledge through an economy? I can't
| think of any that are particularly effective
| SoftTalker wrote:
| For commodities like that, competition already pushes
| prices to the zero profit limit. Everyone gets them as
| cheaply as they can be produced. And for those who can't
| afford even that we have subsidies.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| The regressiveness issue of tolls is effectively a nitpick
| compared to the broader more comprehensive issue of how to we
| create an affordable transportation system for the working
| class and how do we raise the revenue to fund that through
| taxes.
|
| The dominant automobile oriented transportation system is
| very unaffordable and requires high costs of entry. The best
| thing we can do to make transportation more affordable in
| general is giving people more options aside from the car.
| Taxing the wealthy in order to raise revenue for public
| transportation and active transportation options dominates
| any sort of regressiveness issues around road tolls and less
| traffic makes buses more effective.
| maxlybbert wrote:
| I agree. I don't like toll roads, but I recognize that they
| only charge me for using them, because my use isn't necessarily
| good for everybody else.
|
| Gas taxes also work (ignoring electric vehicles), but paying a
| specific amount for a specific road certainly seems more
| direct.
| m463 wrote:
| Thing is, I suspect the taxing is inefficient. I would guess
| guessing 1% of it goes to mitigating traffic, pollution and
| road damage.
|
| I think most people will just be burdened by it.
|
| I think taxes would be a more efficient way of collecting these
| fees, and ensuring they go to fund mass transit in a way that
| traffic/pollution/road damage was mitigated directly and the
| people were still served.
| bb88 wrote:
| Like all "economically sound" ideas, people fuck it up. To the
| drivers, its one more reminder of a government taxing you on a
| day to day basis, locking up the roads taxes paid for, for
| another series of taxes.
|
| Chicago is the poster child here. Constant rate hikes. Diverted
| funds meant to maintain the roads going elsewhere. "Temporary"
| tolls that become "permanent", etc.
|
| It's bad, stop the madness.
| alistairSH wrote:
| 100%. All of this.
|
| With a side of handing off management and a slice of the
| revenue to private entities. With minimum revenue guarantees
| that then act as a disincentive to improving nearby roadways.
| mjevans wrote:
| They're a prime sign of broken economics.
|
| The people who can least afford to move closer to their jobs
| are the ones who are regressively taxed in time, energy, and
| money the most.
|
| A proper solution would be to require more housing NEAR the
| jobs to make it easier for people to save time and money by
| moving closer.
| levocardia wrote:
| _Require_ housing in certain places? Now that 's what I'd
| call broken economics. If there is such a need for housing
| near job centers...why wouldn't that automatically create the
| incentive to build it? (Hint: It does; the problem is that in
| most places there are "requirements" that make it nearly
| impossible to build new housing. Texas is notable in that it
| lacks the worst extremes of this problem, hence the recent
| trends in rent in Austin).
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Nah. Roads, specifically giant limited access highways
| through urban cities cost lots money to build. it makes
| perfect sense for them to be funded by user fees. Urban land
| is at a premium, if you want to utilize it you have to pay
| for it. Mass transit is a much more space efficient way to
| move people in urban environments, and encourages people to
| walk more in their daily life which has tons of health
| benefits. Also transit really help urban air quality (even
| electric cars cause air quality issues because of the rubber
| tires)
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Sure, if one must drive on a road.
| Lammy wrote:
| Pervasive tolling is surveillance-of-movement in disguise.
| amelius wrote:
| Meh, after housing now yet another resource only available to
| the rich?
|
| I think rationing is more fair and the only way to prevent
| massive outrage until maybe we have reduced the wealth gap to a
| large degree.
| tonymet wrote:
| Traditional taxes are democratic -- if the legislature raises a
| tax, they can be voted out.
|
| Creative revenue approaches sound efficient, but you don't want
| efficiency with spending. Efficiency means that spending will
| grow unabated.
|
| In my state they've had record revenue for 12 years (until just
| lately). Regardless of each record, they continued to outspend
| revenue into a deficit.
|
| Commercial enterprises are bounded by revenue (and debt). Public
| agencies used to have a feedback loop (losing the next election),
| but in many states there is little consequence for deficit
| spending.
|
| Don't give spendthrifts more ways to spend money. They will
| always exceed the revenue they generate.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| On the other hand, private companies have no accountability to
| the public whatsoever, and as long as their grift is revenue
| positive they can exist forever regardless of how damaging they
| are to the lives of everyone around them. Private prisons and
| toll road companies are great examples of parasitic private
| companies that absolutely must not be allowed to exist.
| tonymet wrote:
| I agree that may occur, though we likely disagree on how
| representative it is.
|
| Regardless, 2 wrongs don't make a right. Moreover, most of
| the public spending goes into what you would likely consider
| to be grifter enterprises.
| websiteapi wrote:
| it would never happen, but ideally toll roads would be
| dynamically priced such that the average speed is always within
| 10% of the speed limit. congestion fixed.
|
| earmark this money in a way that can't be siphoned and build
| public transportation with it. in addition buy fleets of buses
| with the cash that are exempt and analyze the destinations and
| origins of the traffic and put them there.
| nfw2 wrote:
| demand for transport is not that elastic though
| hamdingers wrote:
| It's more elastic than you might assume. There's a phenomenon
| called traffic evaporation, when a major roadway is closed or
| diminished (even unexpectedly), people adjust their travel
| behavior such that travel times stay relatively constant.
|
| Los Angeles has many such examples, one recent and well
| studied one was the closure of the 10 freeway after a fire.
| dangus wrote:
| It totally is. Demand can be induced. You can build more
| highways/roads, you can build more transit options, you can
| decide how to design roads and handle zoning, affecting how
| far people go, you can decide to build protected bike lanes
| or build prioritized bus lanes, etc.
|
| All of these factors and more affect demand for
| transportation.
| zdragnar wrote:
| People already driving generally aren't likely to change their
| destination, and all the traffic headed toward the dynamically
| priced toll road still needs to be diverted in a way that they
| will reach wherever they were going.
|
| You aren't going to change congestion unless you fix the
| balance between throughput and volume. Dynamic pricing doesn't
| improve throughput, and it doesn't decrease volume- it just
| forces some of that volume onto less well equipped roads.
| websiteapi wrote:
| why wouldn't it decrease volume? presumably if it starts
| costing 100 bucks a day people would stop driving and take
| these hypothetical buses, no? of course as I mentioned I know
| this would never actually work for political reasons.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| > People already driving generally aren't likely to change
| their destination
|
| They are if you price it properly. If it costs $1000 to get
| on that road, a lot of people are going to find alternative
| means of transport, carpool, or forgo the trip entirely.
| hamdingers wrote:
| Minnesota experimented with throttling freeway entrances based
| on congestion, not even charging money, and drivers response
| was clear: they'd rather sit in traffic.
| kergonath wrote:
| > it would never happen, but ideally toll roads would be
| dynamically priced such that the average speed is always within
| 10% of the speed limit. congestion fixed.
|
| "Good news! Surge pricing is in effect, and today your commute
| will cost you twice the usual price!"
|
| People who can defer traveling to avoid traffic jams and
| congestion already tend to do so. Sitting in traffic is boring,
| stressful, and a waste of time and money. People who don't have
| a good reason not to.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| A good analogy is a queue. Imagine a society of mostly-
| identical people. You set up a stand that offers free
| sandwiches, but you can only give the sandwich to one person
| a minute. What will happen? A line will form outside your
| stand, growing longer until the length of the line is such
| that the discomfort of waiting in line is equal to the
| pleasure of eating the sandwich. So even though your
| sandwiches are supposedly free, a cost is still imposed on
| everyone who wants one, because they have to waste time
| standing in line.
|
| You're right that people who can defer traveling to avoid
| traffic jams and congestion already tend to do so. But there
| are still people at the margin. People who don't value their
| time or don't mind sitting in traffic listening to the radio
| or dislike taking the bus. These people are creating
| congestion, imposting a cost on everyone else, and paying
| nothing for it. They would do it less if they had to pay.
| (It's okay for people to drive and sit in traffic, there's
| just no reason it should be free!) So it would really be more
| like "Good news! Surge pricing is in effect, and today your
| commute will cost you twice the usual price but take half as
| long!"
| walthamstow wrote:
| Buses are great! Road commuting is not much of a thing where I
| live, so what do I know, but the simplest way to mitigate the
| problem that poor people can't use a toll road is to put buses
| on it.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I've never been on a public bus and thought, "this is
| great!". Crowded, dirty, and almost always there is someone
| on drugs or experiencing psychosis. I'll stick to my car.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I've never sat in car traffic and thought it was awesome
| either. It's a terrible economic drag and it's boring as
| fuck. There are solutions available.
| bluGill wrote:
| I've never experienced that on a bus. but when transit is
| useless only those with no option use it and those tend to
| be the problems you state. Make transit useful and the
| problems go away
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| There are tons of express lanes in my metro (DFW) that are
| dynamically priced to try and achieve a minimum speed of 55 mph
| bdangubic wrote:
| I didnt realize there are still tollroads that are _not_
| dynamically priced?! haven't seen one in a loooong time
| survirtual wrote:
| Every single lifestyle item of a modern life, whether you have a
| car or not, depends on the road system.
|
| If you want food, products, or services, you depend on the roads.
| This means it should be taxed universally and equitably. We
| should all contribute our fair share to maintain the roads.
|
| Tolls are a regressive tax on low-income people who do the most
| to make society work, and it is unfortunate that more people do
| not see this. What's more, they are generally administered by
| corrupt and inefficient private for-profit orgs. This creates
| even more overhead which then costs more money.
|
| These orgs generally have slimy deals with city and state
| governments, while directly profiting from public works that
| built the road system to begin with.
|
| There are much better ways to fund the road system. Tolls are
| among the worst.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I don't agree with this perspective. A tax on negative
| externalities doesn't have to be regressive. It depends on what
| the tax money is spent on. This is an extreme example, but if
| you added a congestion tax and then spent the money on a tiny
| UBI, you might generate $10/person/month, which would be a
| major uplift to the poorest in our society who don't drive at
| all. The argument against congestion pricing is further
| weakened by the fact that those harmed (drivers, pay the tolls)
| are also those who benefit (drivers, who enjoy less
| congestion). The ones who are harmed the most are those
| displaced from driving, who have to find something else to do
| and don't enjoy the benefits of reduced convention. That's
| using congestion pricing as an example, but the same argument
| applies to taxing vehicles in proportion to the wear they
| impose on roads.
|
| Business owners who pay the tax are free to raise their prices,
| which is how it's supposed to work. They're currently raising
| their prices because their drivers waste time in congested
| traffic and because they pay taxes to the government for road
| maintenance.
|
| For an analogy, it also makes sense to tax companies who dump
| their waste in rivers, to the extent that their waste dirties
| the rivers. If there is some ultra-valuable product that could
| only be made by dirtying a river (idk, let's say that for some
| reason insulin had to be made that way), it would be a good
| that it could still be made, while discouraging people from
| dirtying rivers for little reason. No one would say "polluting
| the river should be free because we all use products that are
| made by polluting rivers." If polluting rivers were free and
| the government just taxed everyone to clean them up afterwards,
| we probably all really would use products made by polluting
| rivers! but that doesn't mean we would be worse off by taxing
| it directly.
|
| That said, I agree that there's no reason for tolls to fund the
| road system. Hypothecated taxes are generally not a good idea,
| despite the fact that they're very intuitively appealing.
| jarjoura wrote:
| Aren't toll roads the norm? It was radical in the 1940s and 1950s
| to create public freeways.
|
| Toll roads do have real consequences and, do, raise the cost of
| everything that needs to travel over it. It also means things
| that could exist on one side of a bridge or tolled section will
| relocate to other areas to avoid tolls.
|
| Not against them, but I also don't like them. I personally think
| it's a failure of a state managing its roads where the cost has
| to become disproporiationally spread.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Aren't toll roads the norm?
|
| No. I won't say they're rare but they're not especially common
| in the US.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Do you perhaps live in Florida or Oklahoma? They are quite rare
| in CA, the southwestern states in general, and the upper
| midwest.
| Bengalilol wrote:
| > "For now, drivers pay to access just 6,300 miles of America's
| 160,000 or so miles of highway"
| drnick1 wrote:
| Very odd, an article about America, but mostly using British
| spelling except for prices in $.
| digital-cygnet wrote:
| This is normal for the Economist. I don't really understand why
| -- they clearly have an American edition (I get their print
| version in the US and its headlines and organization is totally
| different than the same edition in the UK), yet they leave all
| the "colours" and "boffins" in there, when it would be pretty
| trivial to regionalize the language same as they do the
| currencies and structure. My assumption is that being a bit
| eccentric and foreign-seeming is part of their brand.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Perhaps payback for tourists using the word 'dollars' in London
| :P
| fortyseven wrote:
| Aside from money, I think one of the major issues I had with toll
| booths was... Well the booths. Stopping, having to fish out exact
| change, planning ahead to make sure you had enough change, etc.
|
| Nowadays we have those boxes that we can put in the windshield
| that automatically bill us later. And that's made me far more
| willing to take a trip via the highway. Removes a lot of anxiety.
| And, so far, at least in my experience, they work.
| blauditore wrote:
| Tangential, but: Cars are in part so problematic because they are
| a means of transportation designed for a handful of people, but
| mostly used by a single person. All the alternatives are either
| unpopular to most people (like bikes, or public transport), or
| obscure (small one-person cars). Especially the US just converged
| to this impractical de-facto standard in size and shape.
| hamdingers wrote:
| The alternatives are impractical due to all the space cars and
| their infrastructure consume (walking, transit), or due to the
| danger cars pose (bicycles, motorbikes, small cars).
|
| The US has converged because we are trapped in a vicious cycle.
| underlipton wrote:
| The cycle would have broken in 2008 if we hadn't bailed out
| the auto manufacturers. Pro-free market until the moment it
| counts.
| matt3210 wrote:
| Public transportation in a lot of places isn't safe especially
| when traveling with women or children
| drewmate wrote:
| Women and children aren't inherently dangerous. If you just
| avoid eye contact and keep to yourself, you should be fine
| ronbenton wrote:
| I took a transportation engineering class a while back and one
| bit of knowledge that stuck with me is tolls are the only
| effective traffic relief mechanisms for a roadway. Other
| mechanisms like adding lanes just invite more cars and traffic is
| not relieved. I never checked whether this was true, but sounded
| reasonable.
| bwhiting2356 wrote:
| Adding lanes may not cut congestion in the long term, but it
| can increase throughput and overall utility by moving more
| people and goods.
| ronbenton wrote:
| I don't doubt it. It is quite a while ago so I don't fully
| recall the talk that my professor gave, but I don't believe
| he intended to mean adding lanes was useless, just that they
| didn't help with congestion of the particular roadway
| bluGill wrote:
| If adding lanes doesn't help you didn't add enough. People
| live in a city to do things and you need to enable that by
| preventing congestion.
|
| i don't know how to afford the 50 more lanes that most
| cities need though. I suggest better transit.
| cmovq wrote:
| I don't know why this is downvoted, obviously more lanes
| increase throughput else we wouldn't do it.
| ronbenton wrote:
| how do you see that something is downvoted? I don't see
| points on any comments but my own
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _how do you see that something is downvoted?_
|
| You can't directly. If the comment goes negative, it get
| greyed out. (In many cases, people are complaining about
| a comment they like not being the top comment.)
|
| Either way, complaining about the voting is against the
| guidelines and thus flaggable. _That_ causes your comment
| to get marked as flagged.
| simonra wrote:
| Look up <<Braess's paradox>>, more throughput when removing
| capacity is long established (century +) in systems with
| simplistic greedy agents like humans
| expedition32 wrote:
| But you run into the risk that people don't use your new
| expensive toll road and you're left with a big pile of debt...
|
| That is the problem with them in the Netherlands. Building and
| maintaining roads is so frighteningly expensive that you can't
| price them to even cover the cost!
| ronbenton wrote:
| I think perhaps my professor was talking about adding tolls
| explicitly as a traffic congestion relief mechanism rather
| than a way to recoup cost of maintaining the roadway
| black_puppydog wrote:
| So you mean if we dont socialize the up-front cost _plus_ the
| ongoing externalities, roads aren 't economically sensible
| choice? That seems less like a problem and more like the
| beginning of a nice reflection...
| DaSHacka wrote:
| No form of transportation would be at that point
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Have you considered fuel rationing?
| shkkmo wrote:
| I had a very negative view toward toll roads untill I found the
| Road Guy Rob youtube channel. His video on the Oklahoma toll
| roads completely changed my perspective.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EzPPmiKFf5I
| billy99k wrote:
| I recently traveled to Florida. There are toll roads everywhere.
| Luckily, I got the unlimited daily toll package when I rented my
| car.
| Devasta wrote:
| Good. Cars only exist as a viableeans of transport due to vast
| subsidies and a total reorganization of society to suit them.
| Motorists should pay the cost of this absurd status quo.
| anorphirith wrote:
| paid HOV lanes in the bay area are a so enraging. they created a
| problem by restricting the number of lanes and increasing traffic
| and offered a monetary solution at the same time by having you
| pay for the "fast" lane
| matt3210 wrote:
| Taxing only the users of a good or service sounds reasonable
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| They're wrong on multiple fronts, they're regressive. The poor
| bear the brunt of them.
|
| Despite the bad press, a well run government highway is much
| cheaper, generally 30% or more of that toll goes directly to
| maintaining the system and it's profits, there's more efficient
| funding methods out there.
|
| They're natural monopolies, they fill up with traffic regardless
| of how much you rip people off.
| Alupis wrote:
| > The poor bear the brunt of them.
|
| Going to need a citation for that, because it seems the
| wealth(ier) and/or business-classes would bear the most
| significant burden of toll roads.
|
| Typically, in my experience, tolls are assessed at boundaries
| of cities, regions, and intra-region/city transit is toll-free.
|
| Businesses that use the toll road (think trucking/freight, etc)
| pay tolls because they come from outside of the boundary.
| Wealthier individuals may commute into the boundary for work,
| also paying tolls.
|
| One can live inside the city of San Francisco and never pay a
| toll - but someone that lives outside and commutes in for work
| or business pays tolls every day.
|
| Other states, such as Illinois have a vast amount of toll roads
| - where tolls are trivial (typically) but also still only
| assessed at boundaries. The roads are often much more well
| maintained than government roads, since the toll collector has
| a direct financial interest in maintaining traffic on the
| roads.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Here in Chicagoland, the major tollways aren't boundary
| oriented, they're just charging effectively per mile. The
| same is true of my home state of Indiana. They were supposed
| to be free once the bonds were paid off, but, of course, that
| never happened.
| Alupis wrote:
| When I was in the Chicago area, I paid no tolls when I
| entered and exited the tollway within the same region.
| Perhaps that has changed within the last 10ish years?
|
| It doesn't seem practical to charge tolls at every onramp.
| bbarn wrote:
| It was very much on and off for many years. It was
| intended to cover the costs then go away. Instead they
| installed stream lined overhead tolls to not have to wait
| at the toll booth anymore and now it's just a perpetual
| tax.
|
| It's also partially owned by outside investment
| (specifically the skyway from Indiana)
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah work from home, but all the jobs for the less well off
| require driving.
| scoofy wrote:
| The point of the article is that you're paying one way or
| another. Roads aren't free to build and/or maintain... in fact,
| it's extremely expensive to build and maintain them. It's just
| that the all levels of gov't have allowed the gas tax get
| inflated away through both inflation and efficiencies.
|
| Determining who pays to maintain these systems is a political
| decision, but it certainly makes sense that we should really be
| charging people who use them. Adding a luxury tax to folks who
| want to skip traffic seems like a free lunch for everyone else.
| At the end of the day, suburbanites want to force the rural and
| urban dwellers to subsidize their primary mode of
| transportation (large, dense highways), but it's becoming more
| and more politically untenable.
| lokar wrote:
| They don't have to have any profit, they can be 100% public
| infrastructure.
|
| And the excess revenue can be used to subsidize transit.
|
| Tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of.
| coldtea wrote:
| 1. It's gonna get worse before it gets better.
|
| 2. Fooled you! It's not getting better.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| What's spreading is mass surveillance.
|
| Nearly every toll (in NJ or surrounding states) is done via EZ
| Pass a/o license plate readers.
|
| It's nearly impossible to travel without being tracked.
| ece wrote:
| I would like to see the ratio of toll prices to public transport
| available for each state properly normalized. Would be
| interesting to see a correlation.
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