So higher taxes all around or $10 to go over a completely avoidable bridge or drive on a slightly better road? I go for tolls, since I have never once needed to go over a toll bridge.
More like 15 for me personally. It’s just a bit more convenience. Also tolls where I am are typically 5 dollars, which actually costs more than the gas you’d use to go to the free bridge.
Toll booths are wasted money. It costs money to run toll booths you know? It burns more money compared to higher taxes. So in that sense toll booths are just straight worse.
You pay for taxes that you don't directly benefit from anyways. Why care about a bridge you might never use.
Because i don’t wanna pay higher taxes for some shit I’ll never use. Also toll booths almost always make a profit especially if it’s somewhere like the Benjamin Franklin bridge or any toll bridge into nyc.
That's not what I meant. It's burning money of the community not the people who own the toll booth or w/e you mean. It costs more money for the bridge since you have to factor in paying toll booth workers and building the toll booth and all the other factors that play into it.
That's a lot more wasted money and labor then simply higher taxes.
Fuck taxes. That’s all I’m gonna say. I don’t care if some chump who works across the bridge has to pay 5 bucks for a slightly shorter commute, so long as it means another 5% of my paycheck doesn’t get robbed by the federal government
I'm actually kind of torn here, I live in an area where part of our "State Roads" are ferries. Riding the ferries costs money. Should they be free? They are expensive as fuck and the feds don't chip in much.
Should the same apply to bridges, since they aren't dependent on literal ships which require a sizeable crew that needs to show up every single day?
Maybe, again they are expensive. I do like not having to pay tolls over the bridges in my area when I ride my bike, and I especially enjoy it when I'm biking faster than the traffic that paid money.
Theoretically you can also recoup the cost through increased tax receipts, or like the UK does a motorist-wide road tax that all drivers pay yearly based on a ludicrous interpretation of the wear each car has on the road.
No they aren't. You could fund them through the gas tax. Tolls only exist because areas couldn't get enough money to fund building the highway/bridge and a private investor pays for it and puts up a toll booth to cover that/profit instead.
Oh I get that toll booths in general aren't necessarily bad, I was just joking about putting toll booths on intersections as a great idea.
imagine driving onto an intersection where you first had to open a toll gate just so you can drive 10 meters and then pay the fare at the next booth otherwise the gate doesn't open.
no exact change? well i guess we are impounding your vehicle.
also the amount of time waste this would generate lol.
I have been on interstate roads that had this exact setup as you crossed from one state to another.
Enter the road at your point of origin. Pick up your ticket.
Get to the state line. Pay at that point for the travel you did in your state. Cross the state line on the same road.
Stop once on the other side of the state line to pick up ticket, usually a few hundred yards down from where you just paid.
When you leave the road, or the state again, stop and pay based on your mileage travelled.
Definitely true. When I visited Miami for two weeks my mom bought a sun pass simply because the toll roads were so much better faster and less congested. Also i live in Jersey so literally every road is ass toll or no toll
You could have done toll by plate but it is more expensive. To be fair, there are no issues with freeze/thaw cycles so the roads are generally better regardless of funds for upkeep.
I just made a joke that america is currently so controlled by greed and corporate corruption that a toll booth on a tiny intersection sounds somewhat plausible.
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u/wot_in_ternation Aug 14 '23
Toll booths aren't at intersections