4500 Miles, Punctuated by TOLLS

We drove 4500 miles in a car loaded with clothes, computers, skis, ice skates and unidentified objects to set up our son Billy in his dormitory and enjoy first-hand the ambience of Harvard.

This journey took us on some of the most sophisticated and well-established toll roads, tunnels, and turnpikes in the country. Our Texas Re-thugs want to toll 4000 miles of roads in Texas (including the Trans Texas Corridor) so studying carefully the well-established toll roads throughout the East Coast would be instructive.

I attended a Regional Mobility Authority (RMA) pro-toll meeting a couple of weeks ago and one of their talking points, stated repeatedly, was that there would no collection booths in the Texas version. Their plan will employ only electronic passes in the Texas design to avoid slow downs.

HOG WASH. We traveled through 20 different toll zones. Each one had more cash stands than E-Z pass lanes. Why? Because most cars are occasional, infrequent or one-time users. The location of the cash-only booths was sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right. As cars neared the toll plaza they all had to shift left or right to get in the proper toll lane; it is very dangerous. Every toll plaza had 12 or more booths to handle the 3 or 4 lanes of traffic that approached the toll. After paying the toll the 12 lanes were funneled back to three causing merging problems for all vehicles, slowing the traffic even more. We spent a total of about 4 hours sitting in traffic waiting to get on a toll road or bridge, and none of that time was rush-hour time, because we had planned the trip specifically to avoid rush-hour driving on tolled roads.

There is no way the Texas toll version can operate without cash pay tollbooths. Many travelers are occasional and infrequent visitors to our area. They will not spend $3000.00 to drive through an E-Z lane 3 or 4 times per year. There are many hard-working Texans who will not have a lump sum $3000.00 to give Rick Perry and his Corte. I promise you, cash booths will have to be installed.

Let’s summarize the problems with Rick and his Corte’s plan for Texas Tolls:
1. Tolling a road already constructed with tax dollars violates the Texas Constitution.
2. Their plan gives the profits to a foreign country (Spain).
3. It will devour family farmland, aquifer recharge land, and other private property such as hunting leases.
4. It will slow traffic down more than without tolls.
5. It will cost the average family in District 122 more than $3000.00 per year.
6. Oh yeah - lying to the public about the plan and hiding contractual obligations is also a “problem”.

Sounds very Rick Perry!!

Larry Stallings

(cross-posted on TexasKaos and Burnt Orange Report)