Comment box Scope: personal reaction, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none This is a huge benefit for society. People are blissfully unaware of the immense financial...
Exemplary
Comment box
Scope: personal reaction, information, opinion
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
This is a huge benefit for society. People are blissfully unaware of the immense financial and social cost of maintaining hundreds of thousands of miles of highway infrastructure. Having a small toll reduces the incentive to drive very slightly, just enough to make someone consider taking alternatives.
Tolls induce a slight mode shift toward other forms of travel, like walking, buses, trains, cycling, ebike, etc., or simply not taking unnecessary trips via car at all. Personal automobiles are a pretty inefficient method of transport, especially on long-distance highways, so a slight prod in the right direction is a good thing.
The poorest people in society do not drive personal vehicles and are the worst-affected by externalities of highways (pollution, traffic violence). Therefore, modest tolls on highways are more equitable than the current subsidy.
Highway tolls are:
Better for the environment - fewer cars means less emissions in the air and less tire microplastics leaching into the ground // water. Plants will do better with fewer cars. And all that. And maybe this will cause some people to realize they don't need a car at all, so long-term there could be fewer production emissions. And less Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) means traffic engineers can build smaller roads, which means fewer paved surfaces, which means better rainwater management, which is good for environmental sustainability.
Safer for all people - cars are the physical cause of death of tens of thousands of people in the USA annually, including many Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) as well as drivers. No other mode is as deadly. The #1 solution in the hierarchy of controls is to physically remove the threat. Less VMT, less traffic deaths.
Healthier for individuals - cars obviously emit toxic fumes which cause asthma and exacerbate other cardiovascular diseases. Fewer cars means fewer fumes. The microplastics remain an issue with EVs so it is helpful even then. Also less driving means less road rage, a consistent problem which is both physically and psychologically harmful. Also, maybe something like this would encourage people to take a bus and walk the remaining distance --- reducing the sedentary-ness of our lifestyles is definitely a health bonus. And long-term maybe it will just culturally reduce people's psychological dependence on the car, so they'll walk more even if they don't strictly need to.
Better for traffic - tolls reduce the total number of vehicles on the road slightly, which reduces congestion. And if implemented on a peak/off-peak basis, they also spread out non-time-sensitive traffic throughout the day. This improves road capacity and functionally allows us to repurpose roads overbuilt for peak hours for better uses, like bicycle lanes, street cafes, trees and rainwater/permeable areas, art sculptures or whatever
Fiscally responsible - there is no concept of farebox recovery for highways in our society, which means we are massively subsidizing highway use despite its worse efficiency vs. other modes and its various externalities. And economically speaking it is generally a good idea for people to 'pay for what you use' because markets contain more information than free services, so now the transportation system is at least comparing driving with other modes on a marginally more level field (in Indiana) ---- in an ideal world tolls would be completely demand-based, similar to most planes/trains, either based on time of day (as stated above) or more granularly, maybe time of year too.....
Directly beneficial for transit systems - the biggest beneficiaries here are probably Amtrak,Greyhound etc which do long-distance public transportation. The tolls incentivize more Amtrak ridership. This improves Amtrak's profit margin and allows them to offer more and better train service. Better Amtrak ridership and profitability figures also encourages politicians to provide more capital funding for high-speed rail infrastructure, which is one of best ways (often the very best) to travel medium to long distances.
Indiana has very slow trains (none above 60 mph with one exception which is really just an extension of Chicago). It is also a centrally located place which historically had very many trains. High Speed Rail (at least higher than right now) would be very useful for many Amtrak trips originating in or traveling through Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cinncinnati, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, and even Washington DC and Minneapolis. If Indiana now has a slightly higher incentive to pay for infrastructure to enable even 79 mph trains, that would make a big difference throughout the Amtrak system, beyond just Indiana. 110-125 mph would be great.
Encouraging for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Even a slight incentive not to drive makes housing options near train/bus stations more attractive to people. This drives demand for more such housing in walkable or transit-connected places, rather than disconnected exurbs off the highway. Municipal zoning boards do have to do some work to make this happen though.
Better for personal finances - if you take a bigger view than the cost of the toll, the societal benefits of all the above definitely result in lower end-costs for regular people. Environmental destruction always has a financial cost (more roads = more flooding = more home damage), so does traffic safety and health (hospital visits are expensive), and land use (living near transit enables cheaper lifestyles). Obviously no one likes paying tolls, but that's the point.
Public transit almost always has a small fee. Regional trains almost always charge tickets based on distance traveled. Highway tolls ought to be at least the same, ideally higher. Just like public transit, it would be simple for governments to create a system to accommodate edge cases for people who actually '"need"' toll-free highway travel, but unlike public transit, the number of people this reasonably applies to is probably quite small.
governor of Indiana
Not necessarily where I would have expected this, but I think this lends credibility to my argument about necessity. This is an actual technical issue, not just an ideological one. Highways and personal vehicle use have so excessively dominated our lives, and municipal spending, that the problem has gotten out of control. Even very partisan-aligned entities are recognizing that something must be done.
Yea god forbid we just have odometer readings done as part of inspections and tax according to total mileage. This, of course, will never happen because than EZPass won't get a cut.
Yea god forbid we just have odometer readings done as part of inspections and tax according to total mileage.
This, of course, will never happen because than EZPass won't get a cut.
Or even parts of states, and the types of inspections vary. Some parts of Illinois have emissions inspections. Mine doesn't. This is very confusing for parents of students who live on campus whose...
Or even parts of states, and the types of inspections vary. Some parts of Illinois have emissions inspections. Mine doesn't. This is very confusing for parents of students who live on campus whose cars are here and won't get inspected here. (There's a process for this just nothing the university does anything with.)
But other states have more thorough inspections, like brakes, steering, etc. I always assumed that lacking any mountains no one cared here, but I'm sure there's some history
When I moved to Michigan, I asked about vehicle inspections since the state i moved from required them every few years. I was told no inspections are required to renew vehicle registration. I told...
When I moved to Michigan, I asked about vehicle inspections since the state i moved from required them every few years. I was told no inspections are required to renew vehicle registration. I told the person I was surprised since Michigan was the home of the American car industry, and I had expected them to have fairly robust vehicle regulations.
In Jersey any certified repair shop can also do inspections. Doesn't need to be the state DMV. Also.....massive infrastructure is needed to install toll survielance where there currently isn't any.
In Jersey any certified repair shop can also do inspections. Doesn't need to be the state DMV.
Also.....massive infrastructure is needed to install toll survielance where there currently isn't any.
The point is that NJ requires inspections in the state, not all states do or have that system set up. And mine only has inspections in some of the state and only for emissions in metro STL/CHI...
The point is that NJ requires inspections in the state, not all states do or have that system set up. And mine only has inspections in some of the state and only for emissions in metro STL/CHI areas for example
Come to think of it, pretty much every car made after 2016 could self-report more or less continously. Not a fan of more spyware, but that's what 'tolls everywhere' adds up to anyhow.
Come to think of it, pretty much every car made after 2016 could self-report more or less continously.
Not a fan of more spyware, but that's what 'tolls everywhere' adds up to anyhow.
I am personally baffled by the people willing to jump on the libertarian "privatize all roads" train and the "let the cars report more back to the government" train at the same time. Just because...
I am personally baffled by the people willing to jump on the libertarian "privatize all roads" train and the "let the cars report more back to the government" train at the same time. Just because it's a train? Both sound horrible to me, even though I'd support a usage tax. (And I live without public transit and have to drive a wheelchair van which is already unaffordable when it's ten years old and isn't electric. )
But idk why you replied this to me, as I was just providing you with information about how inspections are not a universal feature in this country since you seemed to misunderstand the previous poster.
The general thought was 'more than one way to skin a cat' to do mileage based taxes without needing to deploy the inspection system specifically. I too would prefer less surveilance, but that's...
The general thought was 'more than one way to skin a cat' to do mileage based taxes without needing to deploy the inspection system specifically.
I too would prefer less surveilance, but that's likely not an option. A fixed annual fee of $600 annually to own a car would cover the gas tax and then some.
What’s wrong with… just having tolls? Lots of countries, including many touted for having good public infrastructure, have tolls, like Japan and many European countries. Like, logically, if the...
What’s wrong with… just having tolls? Lots of countries, including many touted for having good public infrastructure, have tolls, like Japan and many European countries.
Like, logically, if the goal is to charge cars for driving on a road, it makes more sense to add something to the road than to add something to every car in existence, since there’s a lot more cars than there are roads.
Comment box Scope: comment response, question Tone: curious Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Interesting idea, I had not considered that. But isn't it pretty easy to hack into odometers and change...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, question
Tone: curious
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
Interesting idea, I had not considered that. But isn't it pretty easy to hack into odometers and change them? Would alot of people do that to evade taxes? I'm not sure how hard it would be to enforce that, compared to, enforcing that people have real/non-covered-up license plates (how people avoid tolls).
There may be serious consequences, but unless there’s serious enforcement it doesn’t change very much. If don’t do something crazy it’s pretty hard to detect. The laws are entirely designed around...
There may be serious consequences, but unless there’s serious enforcement it doesn’t change very much. If don’t do something crazy it’s pretty hard to detect.
The laws are entirely designed around people falsifying the odometer for sale. In this case, it’s just your personal vehicle. For sale, you can try to piece together previous records to find inconsistencies. For just a persons car, unless you hire a PI to track them for a month not much you can do.
(i) Drivers may opt into a $0.02/mile pay-as-you-go system with an $86 annual registration fee.
(l) Calculated as a function of vehicle miles driven; set at $131.88 for EVs.
(o) Users may elect to pay $0.0111 per mile driven instead.
In June Mike Braun, the governor of Indiana, signed a law giving the state the authority to raise tolls on all of its existing interstate highways. No state has previously tried that, says Robert Poole, a transportation expert at the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think-tank.
For now, drivers pay to access just 6,300 miles of America’s 160,000 or so miles of highway. But, says Mr Poole, the share may be about to grow rapidly. Assuming the federal government goes along with it, Indiana’s experiment could lead to toll roads proliferating across the United States.
The reason why federal law banned states from collecting tolls on interstates was that drivers had already paid for the roads by means of a tax on petrol (or gasoline). In 1956, when the Federal-Aid Highway Act passed, for every gallon drivers bought, three cents (or $0.36 today) went into a “federal highway trust fund”. The fund raised enough money to build out the federal highway system, enabling the transformation of America into a hypermobile, motorised society.
The problem is that the model no longer works. Over the decades, the cost of maintaining roads and highways has risen, even as cars have become more fuel-efficient. And raising gas taxes, even just in line with inflation, is generally considered to be political suicide. The last time Congress did it was in 1993. The result is a giant deficit. In fiscal 2024, the federal government spent $27bn more on maintaining roads than it collected in tax. At the state and local levels, fuel taxes covered barely a quarter of road spending.
...
By deterring some drivers, tolls also limit congestion. Some of the most successful projects have been “express” lanes added to highways where drivers pay variable rates to skip traffic. California State Route 91, a famously clogged highway in Los Angeles, has a toll lane with high peak prices and where the cost to enter it can adjust as often as every three minutes, according to traffic levels. These sorts of projects are expanding.
I really liked how the express lanes were done in the areas of the SF Bay Area I lived - express lanes really only charged during periods of high congestion, and were free with 2+ people in the...
I really liked how the express lanes were done in the areas of the SF Bay Area I lived - express lanes really only charged during periods of high congestion, and were free with 2+ people in the car.
I generally dislike the idea of entirely restricting roads based on tolls - IMO, roads should be public-access, and that means they should be free. And I don’t love the idea of third-party companies (like EzPass) taking a cut of the toll.
Ideally, we’d charge something at the DMV based on vehicle weight & miles driven, since the gas tax ignores EVs and apparently is political suicide to raise. But I guess since we don’t have the infrastructure in place for that, toll roads do make sense.
Toll roads are often built with private partnership, where the state provides the real estate and favorable bond tax treatment, and a private set of investors are responsible for building and...
Toll roads are often built with private partnership, where the state provides the real estate and favorable bond tax treatment, and a private set of investors are responsible for building and operating the toll road and take on the risk (and profit) from tolling revenue.
If the government was to remove tolls on these roads ("give them away"), they would need buy out the private companies currently operating them. Because demand for free things is so high, you would see traffic jams ("queues") on those toll roads.
I mean, in PA at least I've never met anybody deterred from using the PA Turnpike (RT 76) because the alternative is 10x more driving. Removing all the tolls would just make for smoother driving.
I mean, in PA at least I've never met anybody deterred from using the PA Turnpike (RT 76) because the alternative is 10x more driving. Removing all the tolls would just make for smoother driving.
They’re implying that it’s ironic that Republicans would be against tolls since giving things away for free, resulting in long lines, is what communist states were known for.
They’re implying that it’s ironic that Republicans would be against tolls since giving things away for free, resulting in long lines, is what communist states were known for.
Probably for the best. Having some kind of usage based metering is useful for making sure money is allocated where it’s being used. More popular roads = more tolls = more maintenance required....
Probably for the best. Having some kind of usage based metering is useful for making sure money is allocated where it’s being used. More popular roads = more tolls = more maintenance required.
When I drove in japan the tolls were quite high and frequent and that definitely changed the calculus on train vs car even in the more rural areas. A train ticket can be 4,200 yen and the same distance on toll road would be 3,400 yen. So after gas, often more expensive if you don’t have another person with you.
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This is a huge benefit for society. People are blissfully unaware of the immense financial and social cost of maintaining hundreds of thousands of miles of highway infrastructure. Having a small toll reduces the incentive to drive very slightly, just enough to make someone consider taking alternatives.
Tolls induce a slight mode shift toward other forms of travel, like walking, buses, trains, cycling, ebike, etc., or simply not taking unnecessary trips via car at all. Personal automobiles are a pretty inefficient method of transport, especially on long-distance highways, so a slight prod in the right direction is a good thing.
The poorest people in society do not drive personal vehicles and are the worst-affected by externalities of highways (pollution, traffic violence). Therefore, modest tolls on highways are more equitable than the current subsidy.
Highway tolls are:
Public transit almost always has a small fee. Regional trains almost always charge tickets based on distance traveled. Highway tolls ought to be at least the same, ideally higher. Just like public transit, it would be simple for governments to create a system to accommodate edge cases for people who actually '"need"' toll-free highway travel, but unlike public transit, the number of people this reasonably applies to is probably quite small.
Not necessarily where I would have expected this, but I think this lends credibility to my argument about necessity. This is an actual technical issue, not just an ideological one. Highways and personal vehicle use have so excessively dominated our lives, and municipal spending, that the problem has gotten out of control. Even very partisan-aligned entities are recognizing that something must be done.
Yea god forbid we just have odometer readings done as part of inspections and tax according to total mileage.
This, of course, will never happen because than EZPass won't get a cut.
A pretty sizable number of states don't have vehicle inspections. You'd have to implement that first in many places.
Or even parts of states, and the types of inspections vary. Some parts of Illinois have emissions inspections. Mine doesn't. This is very confusing for parents of students who live on campus whose cars are here and won't get inspected here. (There's a process for this just nothing the university does anything with.)
But other states have more thorough inspections, like brakes, steering, etc. I always assumed that lacking any mountains no one cared here, but I'm sure there's some history
When I moved to Michigan, I asked about vehicle inspections since the state i moved from required them every few years. I was told no inspections are required to renew vehicle registration. I told the person I was surprised since Michigan was the home of the American car industry, and I had expected them to have fairly robust vehicle regulations.
They about laughed themselves onto the floor.
In Jersey any certified repair shop can also do inspections. Doesn't need to be the state DMV.
Also.....massive infrastructure is needed to install toll survielance where there currently isn't any.
The point is that NJ requires inspections in the state, not all states do or have that system set up. And mine only has inspections in some of the state and only for emissions in metro STL/CHI areas for example
Come to think of it, pretty much every car made after 2016 could self-report more or less continously.
Not a fan of more spyware, but that's what 'tolls everywhere' adds up to anyhow.
I am personally baffled by the people willing to jump on the libertarian "privatize all roads" train and the "let the cars report more back to the government" train at the same time. Just because it's a train? Both sound horrible to me, even though I'd support a usage tax. (And I live without public transit and have to drive a wheelchair van which is already unaffordable when it's ten years old and isn't electric. )
But idk why you replied this to me, as I was just providing you with information about how inspections are not a universal feature in this country since you seemed to misunderstand the previous poster.
The general thought was 'more than one way to skin a cat' to do mileage based taxes without needing to deploy the inspection system specifically.
I too would prefer less surveilance, but that's likely not an option. A fixed annual fee of $600 annually to own a car would cover the gas tax and then some.
What’s wrong with… just having tolls? Lots of countries, including many touted for having good public infrastructure, have tolls, like Japan and many European countries.
Like, logically, if the goal is to charge cars for driving on a road, it makes more sense to add something to the road than to add something to every car in existence, since there’s a lot more cars than there are roads.
Comment box
Interesting idea, I had not considered that. But isn't it pretty easy to hack into odometers and change them? Would alot of people do that to evade taxes? I'm not sure how hard it would be to enforce that, compared to, enforcing that people have real/non-covered-up license plates (how people avoid tolls).
Odometer tampering is serious business with penalties up to 3 years in jail and fines up to $10k per instance.
There may be serious consequences, but unless there’s serious enforcement it doesn’t change very much. If don’t do something crazy it’s pretty hard to detect.
The laws are entirely designed around people falsifying the odometer for sale. In this case, it’s just your personal vehicle. For sale, you can try to piece together previous records to find inconsistencies. For just a persons car, unless you hire a PI to track them for a month not much you can do.
Some states even do it already
Snips from the notes:
https://archive.is/ZvPtX
From the article:
...
I really liked how the express lanes were done in the areas of the SF Bay Area I lived - express lanes really only charged during periods of high congestion, and were free with 2+ people in the car.
I generally dislike the idea of entirely restricting roads based on tolls - IMO, roads should be public-access, and that means they should be free. And I don’t love the idea of third-party companies (like EzPass) taking a cut of the toll.
Ideally, we’d charge something at the DMV based on vehicle weight & miles driven, since the gas tax ignores EVs and apparently is political suicide to raise. But I guess since we don’t have the infrastructure in place for that, toll roads do make sense.
It isn't clear to me what this concluding sentence to the article means.
Toll roads are often built with private partnership, where the state provides the real estate and favorable bond tax treatment, and a private set of investors are responsible for building and operating the toll road and take on the risk (and profit) from tolling revenue.
If the government was to remove tolls on these roads ("give them away"), they would need buy out the private companies currently operating them. Because demand for free things is so high, you would see traffic jams ("queues") on those toll roads.
I mean, in PA at least I've never met anybody deterred from using the PA Turnpike (RT 76) because the alternative is 10x more driving. Removing all the tolls would just make for smoother driving.
They’re implying that it’s ironic that Republicans would be against tolls since giving things away for free, resulting in long lines, is what communist states were known for.
Probably for the best. Having some kind of usage based metering is useful for making sure money is allocated where it’s being used. More popular roads = more tolls = more maintenance required.
When I drove in japan the tolls were quite high and frequent and that definitely changed the calculus on train vs car even in the more rural areas. A train ticket can be 4,200 yen and the same distance on toll road would be 3,400 yen. So after gas, often more expensive if you don’t have another person with you.