Question: Why are they raising the toll on the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge?
Answer:
You still have some money, and they want it.
Alternate answer: Because they think you will let them.
Exit question: Are we people or sheep to be shorn at every opportunity?
Nuff Said.
On April 8, 2008 at 1:27 pm, Perri Nelson wrote:
Why are they placing tolls on high occupancy vehicle lanes that have already been paid for in large part with federal monies? For the same reasons you cite.
Toll roads are an inconvenience to drivers, and I believe that that’s the goal.
Federal politicians and bureaucrats are proposing that tolls on public highways and interstates should replace the federal gasoline tax. The federal government will end up having to pay for the infrastructure to collect those tolls and for the bureaucracy involved in maintaining that infrastructure. Soon after, some enterprising politician will rediscover the gasoline tax. What was intended as a replacement for one tax will simply become an addition.
Why is it that our roads aren’t being repaired. Much is made of the high cost of gasoline and "record profits" by the oil companies. A fairly significant portion of the cost of gasoline comes from taxes — taxes meant to go to road repair, and yet my car’s suspension is beaten daily by potholes and poorly repaired roads. Road construction projects go on for decades with little benefit.
In Covington, Wax Road has been under development for most of a year now. I have watched as crews tear the road up to lay pipes or other subteranean gear, inconveniencing traffic in all directions from my neighborhood. The torn out sections are then covered over with fresh pavement, only to be torn up again less than a month later. The exit from my neighborhood onto Wax road has been torn up and patched no less than four times in the last six months. The section of Wax road between Kent-Kangley road and the Wal-Mart has been torn up and patched so often that driving over an unpaved field is easier on your cars suspension and on your back than driving on the road.
The Alaskan Way viaduct was a "public safety emergency" after it was damaged in an earthquake all those years ago. It was in dire need of repair we were told. Ron Sims and his dream of a tunnel overrode common sense and nothing was done. Governor Gregoire nearly had a fit of indecision and called for a public vote which the Seattle City Council practically resisted to the last man. That vote eliminated the grandiose dream of a west coast "Big Dig" like the boondoggle in the East and so now nothing is being done other than the occasional closing of the viaduct in one direction or another for maintenance.
The 520 bridge is in need of repair. The solution? Light rail? Anything for government owned transit systems I guess. Tolls on 520? They were proposed too. Additional lanes? Not if the people living near the arboretum have their way.
Even when it is agreed to develop a transit solution such as putting a light rail station on Capital Hill, what seems to be the big news? What’s the big controversy? Well it’s not whether the transportation solution in question is needed, it’s the subject matter of the art work that’s raising the price by half a million dollars.
Why are they raising the tolls? Because they can. Because less than 5% of the population pays attention in the first place, and because they’re in power.
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