General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTolled Interstates
◦I-15 - managed lanes segment of Escondido Freeway in San Diego
◦I-30 - Dallas-Fort Worth Tollway (formerly tolled; originally signed as I-20)
◦I-35 - Kansas Turnpike
◦I-39 - Northwest Tollway - Rockford, IL
◦I-44 - Oklahoma: H.E. Bailey Turnpike, Turner Turnpike, Will Rogers Turnpike
◦I-64 - West Virginia Turnpike
◦I-65 - Kentucky Turnpike (formerly tolled)
◦I-70 - Pennsylvania Turnpike (on shared alignment with Interstate 76), Kansas Turnpike
◦I-75 - Alligator Alley (Florida); Mackinac Bridge (Michigan)
◦I-76 (Eastern) - Ohio Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike, Walt Whitman Bridge
◦I-77 - West Virginia Turnpike
◦I-78 - Delaware River Bridge (westbound only), Holland Tunnel (eastbound only)
◦I-80 - Delaware River Bridge (westbound only), Ohio Turnpike, Indiana Toll Road, Tri-State Tollway, Carquinez Bridge (northbound only), San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (westbound only)
◦I-84 - Hudson River Bridge (eastbound only)
◦I-87 - New York Thruway
◦I-88 - Illinois East-West Tollway
◦I-90 - Massachusetts Turnpike, New York Thruway (Mainline and Berkshire Section), Ohio Turnpike, Indiana Toll Road, Chicago Skyway, Illinois Northwest Tollway
◦I-93 - F.E. Everett Turnpike
◦I-94 - Tri-State Tollway
◦I-95 - Fort McHenry Tunnel, John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway (including both the Maryland Northeastern Expressway and the Delaware Turnpike), Pennsylvania Turnpike (future), New Jersey Turnpike, George Washington Bridge (eastbound), New England Thruway, Connecticut Turnpike (formerly tolled), New Hampshire Turnpike, Maine Turnpike
◦I-910 - Crescent City Connection/Greater New Orleans Bridges
◦I-335 - Kansas Turnpike
◦I-355 - North-South Tollway
◦I-470 - Kansas Turnpike
◦I-275 - Sunshine Skyway Bridge
◦I-276 - Pennsylvania Turnpike
◦I-476 - Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension
◦I-676 - Ben Franklin Bridge (westbound only)
◦I-278 - Triborough Bridge, Goethals Bridge (eastbound only), Verrazano Narrows Bridge (westbound only)
◦I-478 - Brooklyn Battery Tunnel
◦I-678 - Whitestone Bridge
◦I-580 - Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (westbound only)
◦I-680 - Bencia-Martinez Bridge (northbound only)
◦I-185 - Southern Connector (Greenville, SC)
◦I-287 - New York Thruway section, including Tappan Zee Bridge (eastbound only)
◦I-190 - Niagara Section of the New York Thruway
◦I-294 - Tri-State Tollway
◦I-295 - Delaware Memorial Bridge (southbound only)
◦I-295 - Throgs Neck Bridge
◦I-395 - Connecticut Turnpike (formerly tolled)
◦I-495 - Falmouth Spur of the Maine Turnpike
◦I-495 - Lincoln Tunnel between New Jersey and New York - former route (now NJ 495/NY 495)
◦I-495 - Queens Midtown Tunnel under East River in New York City - former route (now NY 495)
◦I-695 - Francis Scott Key Bridge
◦I-895 - Harbor Tunnel (Baltimore)
(Whether you go east or west, you have to pay to get out of New Jersey! You can enter for free!)
http://www.interstate-guide.com/interstate.html
Also
◦All overpasses must have a 16.5-foot vertical clearance above the freeway, although 14-foot overpasses may be permissible within urban areas. This particular specification was created to allow for military apparatus (such as the huge atomic cannon) to pass cleanly under an overpass. Although military equipment of this size is not commonly transported on the Interstate Highway System (and the atomic cannon is no longer in use), the standard remains. If an overpass cannot be upgraded to accommodate 16.5 feet, then there must be exit and re-entry ramps that allow high profile vehicles to leave the freeway and rejoin the freeway on the other side of the overpass. Truss bridges and overhead signs must meet or exceed 17 feet. Standards may be reduced somewhat for tunnels or other long underpasses.
2naSalit
(86,622 posts)that I live at least 100 miles from the nearest on ramp.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)That's my factoid.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)That's helped me not get lost more than once...
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)I-5 is on the west coast, I-95 on the east. I-8 in the south, I-90 in the north.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Take something commonplace that not all people are aware of and make it into something sinister.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)A fjord to the west, and spread over three different islands.
The Hudson is not just a river. It is a valley carved out by the glaciers in the most recent ice age. It is tidal all the way up to Albany.
Which is why the Verrazano and the George Washington are the longest and fourth longest bridges in the US.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Are not perfect. Some people have lost it on this issue.
whistler162
(11,155 posts)what you are referencing. New York is a state New York City is a part of New York, dang furgeigners!
Warpy
(111,261 posts)That's what a tolled interstate can look like and it's hideous.
This is a REGRESSIVE tax that will hit people at the bottom the hardest while adding cost to things like fruits and vegetables. It's a stupid idea.
Kill it quickly.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)next.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)OOPS!
frylock
(34,825 posts)DERP!
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)I'm open to being convinced the Republicans want toll roads.
frylock
(34,825 posts)you need someone to convince you that republicans want to fuck over the working class?!
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)License plates are a regressive tax. Tolls can only be collected from people who use the roads charging tolls.
Regressive Tax Explained
Everyone pays the same amount of tax dollars with a regressive tax. Therefore, people with a lower income pay a larger percentage of their income under this type of tax. The Internal Revenue Service provides this example: If the tax amount is $2,000, a person who earns $10,000 a year pays 20 percent of his income to pay the $2,000. A person who earns $50,000 pays 4 percent, and a person who earns $100,000 pays 2 percent of his income to pay the $2,000.
Regressive Tax Examples
An example of a regressive tax is the sales tax. Money spent to buy essential and nonessential items that have a sales tax of 7 percent, for example, hits those with a lower income harder than it hits higher-income individuals. Fees are another example of a regressive tax, because lower-income individuals pay a larger percentage of their income for them. Examples are toll roads, licenses, admission to museums and parks, and parking. A third example of a regressive tax is an excise tax, which is a tax on the production or sale of certain commodities such as alcohol, cigarettes, firearms, gasoline, air travel and telephone services. Excise taxes are typically hidden taxes because they are incorporated into the price of the commodity without consumers' realizing it.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/characteristics-regressive-tax-17562.html
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Until we get more dems elected, we need to keep proposing regressive taxes. I have a hard time even comprehending that argument.
Warpy
(111,261 posts)The heavier your vehicle and the more miles you drive (and it excludes the interstates, we're talking ALL miles) the more tax you will pay. It's the fairest way to tax the CO2 you're dumping into the atmosphere while paying for the damage heavier vehicles do to all roadways--not just interstates.
Perhaps it's time for a five cent or so rise in the gas tax. It hasn't had a jump lately.
Toll booths on all interstates are a dumb idea. Get that? Dumb. Idea. They're only talking about it now because EVs and hybrids don't pay enough fuel tax.
I say wait until more than 0.01% of vehicles on the highways are fuel cell, hydrogen, natural gas or electric. Then figure out how to tax them enough to fix the roads.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)The mechanisms to take money out of of our pockets may differ, but it all goes into some government pot to run things.
We need billions, maybe trillions, to fix the roads, tunnels, and bridges, and politicians look for the means to get it with the least effective complaining. Some combination of "road use fees" (tolls or mileage tax) gas taxes, registration fees, and debt is in order, along with our understanding that there is no free lunch.
Warpy
(111,261 posts)which is why I stated an increase in the gas tax is the way to go, the larger and heavier vehicles paying more because they do more damage to the infrastructure.
You use more of something, you pay more. The gas tax does this very nicely.
liberal N proud
(60,334 posts)Tolls to use those roads is double taxation. When I buy fuel at a toll road service plaza, I still pay fuel taxes. Pay twice to drive on roads that are just as poorly managed as those you don't pay twice to drive on.
Where is the improvement? Prove to me that paying double is going to provide better roads. The assholes in Congress will just siphon those funds off to pay for another fucking war.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Tolls were removed in 1985, but I drove it before and have since.
With permission, the state would likely put tolls back on using EZ-Pass readers at entrances and exits. They are reluctant now, lest they have to give back federal funds.
PS -- I find the Merritt Parkway and Wilbur Cross Parkway scarier than I-95. Tighter curves, shorter sight lines, and short deceleration/acceleration strips for merging.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,368 posts)Never, and I mean NEVER drive a big truck on a Parkway!
I was told it and believed it, but as I'm sure you know, you regularly have nitwits driving 18 wheelers try and stuff their 13'6" trucks under Parkway overpasses!
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Warpy
(111,261 posts)There are fewer and fewer land barges from the 50s and 60s on the road now, poorer folks opting for smaller cars on used car lots. The land barges are being sold to people of means to restore, trying to relive their misspent youth in Dad's car.
The larger and heavier and more highly powered the vehicle is, the less gas it uses and that means lower taxes.
The highest taxes will be paid by trucking outfits on tandem trailers.
Still, a nickel a gallon isn't that big an outrage to anyone. If they need more money for highway repair, let them start there, not by wasting billions on Bechtel built toll booths, which is what this is really all about--corporate welfare paying for a big boondoggle everyone will hate.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)for you this is about punishing those that didn't buy cars with high fuel efficiency. You do understand that most used cars that poor people often drive because they were cheap and easy to fix are often not the best on mpg's right? But damn them....we must punish those guys that stupidly bought those Hummers! That's the most important thing...
whistler162
(11,155 posts)afford fuel efficient cars and hurt those that can only afford whatever used car is available, which may or may not have a good MPG, but what the heck it isn't a toll!
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)msongs
(67,406 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)So a mile built in '65 for $1 M would be about $10 M in current dollars after inflation. So it costs $1 M per year in current dollars for everything from litter removal and mowing to breaking up and reconstructing pavement, bridges and overpasses.
Governments have a bad habit of making investments without considering the future stream of operational and maintenance costs. The politicians just think it would help them get elected to borrow $10 M and build a community center without regard to how they are sticking it to future taxpayers.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Sooner or later every road in America will be a privatized toll road, all the Republican have to do is hold their breaths until they turn blue and the Democrats will do it for them.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)good to know...
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Response to FarCenter (Original post)
WillowTree This message was self-deleted by its author.
wercal
(1,370 posts)As the OP pointed out, there are tolled interstates already. I live around a thousand feet from one. However, I have to drive 25 miles to get on it.
Why? Its too expensive to put toll booths up at every exit. That's my main complaint with it.
Also, a third of the loop around Topeka is tolled...and it shows. There has been little economic development near that portion of the loop, because people are reluctant to pay a toll to go shopping. Sure they could use surface streets, but they don't.
And tolls are regressive. If I want to drive from Topeka to Wichita, for instance...trying to avoid the toll road interstate would take at least an additional hour, and I would spend time on some two lane highways that are statistically much more dangerous than the interstate. So while I technically have a choice to not pay the toll, I'd probably spend more in gas trying to avoid it.
When I lived in the northeast, occasionally toll booths would be removed, with much fanfare..."The bridge is finally paid for", etc. That doesn't happen with our tolled interstates in Kansas. In fact, a whole lot of money have been invested in upgrading the toll plazas...since they are permanently tolled.
I readily admit that the roads are in GREAT shape. But when Kathleen Sebelius was governor, she floated the idea of moving money from the turnpike fund to the general fund - a very regressive idea. My fear, if more roads were tolled, would be that exactly that would start to happen all over the country.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)everybody wants nice stuff but nobody wants to pay for it....
i take it you are in the "raise the money by raising the tax on gasoline" camp?
wercal
(1,370 posts)Believe it or not, I am not the only person who would like better access to the turnpike. Not sure how that is lost on you.
Actually I'm in the "quit raiding the highway fund to pay other bills" crowd. BTW that is exactly what has happened in my home state and many others.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)okay....
wercal
(1,370 posts)Do you know what I did last week, and will do next week...and the next several months?
Design work for a fucking highway!
My company's survial and my job depends on highway funding. And I personally have formed budgets and presented budgets and funding sources to governing bodies on at least a hundred different road projects.
Just because you are complety ignorant of the subject, you should not assume everybody else is.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)You seem to think it comes as manna from heaven....
The United States Highway Trust Fund is a transportation fund which receives money from a federal fuel tax of 18.3 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel and related excise taxes.[1] It currently has three accounts, the Highway Account which funds road construction, a smaller 'Mass Transit Account' which supports mass transit and also a 'Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund'. It was established 1956 to finance the United States Interstate Highway System and certain other roads. The Mass Transit Fund was created in 1982. The federal tax on motor fuels yielded $28.2 billion in 2006.[2]
So are you against raising gas taxes to increase funding for the deteriorating infrastructure...or some toll roads to fund them....or just letting them continue to rot?
wercal
(1,370 posts)You need to 'splain where I said all thise things you put in my mouth.
Which you can't.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)please explain to this "ignorant" person! Or is it that you disagree that our roads and bridges are in disrepair altogether?
wercal
(1,370 posts)Where I told you to cite where I actually typed the words you have foolishly attributed to me, before I wasted any more time on you.
Can't you follow directions?
Trajan
(19,089 posts)Nuff said
U4ikLefty
(4,012 posts)I will NEVER vote for anyone (Democrat nor Rethug) who votes for further tolling our Interstates.
I will discuss this no further because of the ignorance displayed by the fools defending this garbage. I can tell they have not spent most of their life as one of the working poor (like myself).
itsrobert
(14,157 posts)2 or more in car can travel those lanes for free.
47of74
(18,470 posts)And have it only kick in for those who make over a certain amount a year, say $100,000. And have it curved so that millionaires have to pay a shit load of money.