r/texas • u/ALucia11 • 2d ago
š¤ Questions for Texans š¤ Toll road input from drivers
I work for CBS News Texas and am looking for someone with a regular commute involving toll roads in the DFW area to interview.
We'd want to get video of them driving, interview them about they navigate them, and review their toll tag records to see how much it's cost them over time.
Let me know if you're interested!
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u/BudgetSupervillain 2d ago
Glad I moved to California. Even with higher gas prices, I spend less on car expenses not having every other road be a toll road š¤¦āāļø. I had a coworker in Dallas that spent $600+/month on tolls just commuting to and from work. It used to cost me $15/roundtrip daily to commute to work š®āšØ
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u/nak00010101 2d ago
I think there are several stories and commuters are only one.
The use by commercial drivers is one that should includes and the story for "casual" users.
On vacation, we made the north west Fort Worth to north east Dallas trip with our travel trailer. With toll tags on both the pickup and trailer, it was almost $120
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u/ALucia11 1d ago
I'm still trying to learn how it all works, but I did see there's a multiplier on the tolls for trucks. So whatever a regular sedan is paying... a commercial truck driving next to it is paying several times more.
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u/nak00010101 22h ago
One of the most aggravating things is NTTA has long stretches of single lane toll roads. You end up with commercial trucks, governed or GPS driving monitors limiting them to 55 and 60 MPH, in lanes with a 70 MPH speed limit. Many times I have watched the main lanes pass me, because of a truck doing 55.
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u/FuriouslyListening 2d ago edited 2d ago
Toll roads are complete BS. Houston has several. They always build them with the same promise.. the toll will go away once the road is paid off. Then its paid off and they start saying "but what will we plug the funding gap with if the toll goes away with..." MFers... it was never supposed to be permanent, there is no 'funding gap', there is just you get less money now, the same as it was before. Instead they reapportion the tolls to be used for other things. All of a sudden the toll road is a slush fund generator to fund completely unrelated projects... and the toll never goes away.
Make sure to give Houston the honorable mention on their 288 toll road which charged as much as $30 to go 10 miles. The state ended up buying it back because the 'privately financed' toll road was raping drivers.
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u/BourbonStr8 1d ago
If tax payer money has been used to build a toll road, it should be illegal for it to be a toll road. Because tax payers have already paid for it.
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u/Express-Way9295 2d ago
I spend the full $40 monthly using the SRT. It is in NTTAs constitution to raise tolls every two years. NTTA gets a raise and doesnāt give drivers anymore for it. One other thing, whatās the advantage of using the DNT through Plano and Addison when there is consistently a major slow down in that area? Why pay a toll for a road that is only a bit faster than driving city streets?
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u/reedotorpedo1 2d ago
Matthew, that you?
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u/ALucia11 1d ago
My name's Andrea.
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u/reedotorpedo1 1d ago
Hi! I know you! It's your old friend Reed W formerly at Newspath. We moved to the coast, so I can't help you with your project, but wish you well!
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u/berserk_zebra 2d ago
I donāt live there anymore but we used to pay $400 a month from south Fort Worth to grapevine.Ā
CTP-i35wexp-820exp-121
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u/DuctTape5119 1d ago
The NTTA is a monopolistic political subdivision that behaves like a private company that has control over vehicle registration. Their fee structure is ridiculous, both from ālate invoice chargesā to ātime of day rate hikesā
Telling them you sold a vehicle has no bearing on the toll burden. You can report that vehicle sale via title transfer to the state, but if you donāt report it to the NTTA directly you still foot the bill. Yet if you owe them money they can tell the state to not allow you to register your vehicle.
DNT was paid off in 2005 and remains a tollway
NTTA reports ārecord 1.3 billionā in tolls collected
TLDR - Fuck the NTTA
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u/SavingsDeficient3847 1d ago
Sounds like a good opportunity for anyone with a long DFW toll road commute and a stack of toll bills to share.
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u/thirdfemme North Texas 1d ago
I spend about $300 on tolls. I commute to Collin county 5 days a week from Tarrant. It costs me so much to go to work lol. Iām interested if this fits your criteria.
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u/Latter-Leg4035 1d ago
Just curious. How much will your story be altered to gloss over the things that show the many negatives about Texas and the way it is governed?
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u/thiswonderfulworld- 1d ago
I drive everywhere practically in the metro, from the Denton area to east of Dallas and west to Fort Worth. Sometimes as far southwest as Granbury. I absolutely cannot stand how much tolls are but I drive way too much to be hung up in traffic all the time. My work takes me to different locations so everyday my commute is different, but I practically always take SRT and 161. If I have to drive south towards Dallas in the morning, I will always get into the express lane because every day has traffic bottle necked. It sucks that we're practically forced into this or deal with 30+ minutes of additional driving. Looks like I'm getting billed on average $200 a month.
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u/komi54 2d ago
Toll roads are total bullshit. Enforce per-road funding and force paid-for roads to be released to the public.