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Transportation United States

Toll Roads Are Spreading in America (economist.com) 165

Posted by msmash from the nothing-is-free-way dept.
Toll roads are expanding across the U.S. as the traditional gas tax funding model for highways collapses. Indiana became the first state to authorize tolls on all of its existing interstate highways when Governor Mike Braun signed legislation in June.

The federal gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993. In fiscal 2024, the federal government spent $27 billion more on road maintenance than it collected from fuel taxes, and at state and local levels, fuel taxes covered barely a quarter of road spending. Drivers currently pay to access just 6,300 miles of America's roughly 160,000 miles of highway.

Most tolling projects have enjoyed bipartisan support -- Florida has more toll roads by distance than any other state, and Texas is second. But as Republicans embrace populism, the politics are shifting. In New York, almost all state Republicans fought congestion pricing, and President Donald Trump attempted to shut it down after taking office. Some Republicans now want to buy back pay-to-drive roads and make them free.

Toll Roads Are Spreading in America More | Reply

Toll Roads Are Spreading in America

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  • Or we can tax appropriately (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @03:20AM (#65884089)

    The 20th Century superpower US was built using a highly progressive tax structure. What's so disappointing about the silent generation and boomers is that they destroyed and sold out what made America great, including the tax system.

    https://bradfordtaxinstitute.c... [bradfordtaxinstitute.com]

    • Re:Or we can tax appropriately (Score:5, Insightful)

      by outsider007 ( 115534 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @04:53AM (#65884157)

      How are toll roads not "taxing appropriately"? The people who benefit from them directly are the ones who support them, it seems like a perfect system.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        They are always more expensive because they have to make a profit, and they distort the market by making it easier for larger players to get preferential rates, or simply eat the cost until their competitors fold.

        • They are always more expensive because they have to make a profit,

          They aren't always more expensive, and they don't have to make a profit. Private toll roads tend to want profit, but public toll roads don't have that goal.

          Toll roads are always annoying, but things like fast trak (auto pay methods where you don't need to stop) make them less annoying.

          • You haven’t driven a toll road lately. Better sit down when you see what it costs to travel the entirety of the PA turnpike. You can I-80 but it’s much further north or route 30 which is a country road with red lights in every town.

            • Having driven around Southern California, yes I've driven on toll roads. Maybe we're just got it figured out so it's not disruptive. We can get this little device that we stick to the window in the corner, and whenever we drive through a toll road, it gets charged to an account. It's very easy.

              Now, if I had to go back to Florida toll roads of the 80s and 90s. No thank you. We would have to literally sit in these long lines to pay the silly toll. It was super boring and in the summer, miserable.

              I haven't bee

            • Yeah, that area from PA to NJ has the most annoying toll roads I've seen anywhere

          • I'm back in Arizona for the holidays. Aside from the fact that it gets dark an our later in the evening compared to California, not only are the roads actually drivable, (imagine that, roads you can actually drive on!) but there isn't a single fucking toll road to be found anywhere in the entire state.

        • by making it easier for larger players to get preferential rates

          Where can you negotiate preferential tolls?

      • Re:Or we can tax appropriately (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Mr. Barky ( 152560 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @07:51AM (#65884355)

        The problem with toll roads is that tolls can really only effectively be placed on a minority of roads. Their very existence will distort the roads that people will use (possibly causing congestion elsewhere, for example). Tolls create a two-tiered system where one road costs extra money to use. This will ultimately lead to less than optimum routing of traffic.

        A gas tax was in many ways the perfect (as perfect as one can get) tax. You paid into the road system (all of it) according to how much you used it. This, of course, only works if the vast majority of traffic use gas (which increasingly is no longer the case).

        Personally, I think road maintenance should come out of general tax funds. Everybody benefits from roads, directly or indirectly. But somehow taxes have become so unpopular (I know, taxes have never been popular) that it is just about impossible to do so - special targeted taxes need to be created to be acceptable.

        • Re:Or we can tax appropriately (Score:5, Insightful)

          by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @08:12AM (#65884381)

          >"A gas tax was in many ways the perfect (as perfect as one can get) tax. You paid into the road system (all of it) according to how much you used it."

          Agreed. It mostly worked. But it doesn't work at all with EV's, and less effectively with HEV's, and gets out of whack for others when fuel prices swing (because road maintenance cost doesn't swing with fuel prices; and the tax doesn't change, it is just a percent per unit of fuel, regardless of the fuel price).

          >"This, of course, only works if the vast majority of traffic use gas (which increasingly is no longer the case)."

          Actually it is very simple. Drop the gas/diesel tax completely, and tax based on annually-collected odometer readings instead, adjusted by vehicle weight. Problem solved. Most states collect the readings annually already with vehicle inspection. What I very much oppose is the government forcing people to put spy devices in their vehicles (in any form) that can monitor ANYTHING except distance.

          >"Personally, I think road maintenance should come out of general tax funds. Everybody benefits from roads, directly or indirectly."

          I don't, because it is TOO non-regressive. Those who drive little or not at all are overly punished. Those that destroy and occupy the roads the most (large commercial vehicles) would pay proportionally very little into the system.

          I am not fond of tolls mostly because they now spy on peoples' movements (since toll stops/cash are rarely allowed now). And, like you said, it distorts road usage, flooding non-toll roads with extra traffic. But aside from that, they are the most "fair."

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by EvilSS ( 557649 )
            I agree on the mileage idea, but would like to point out that only 19 of 50 states have annual inspections. You are going to need some way that isn't a PITA or a privacy issue (electronic metering) to get true mileage in the other 31.

            • That is true. The only two ways I can think of that respects privacy, would be a visit to a DMV or some type of inspection place, or even just dealers who could be registered to take readings. The other would be with a sealed, network-connected device that plugs into the ODB port temporarily, just to take and forward a reading (date/time/VIN/odo). They could make other options available AS AN OPTION, for those who don't care as much about privacy- like manufacturer supplying the info (since they all spy

              • I'm replying here about a much earlier statement: "everybody" benefits from roads; unless a person homesteads and manually grows/picks/slaughters all their food & water; then I agree the general tax fund seems a good place to get money to pay for roads. Also tax the personal automobile, so that people who use roads more, pay via more channels.

                • I am OK with a blend, which is kinda what we have now. We tax the machine, we pay with general taxes, and we pay with use taxes (right now mostly fuel tax). My issue is when EV/HEV greatly disturbs one of those three legs and what replaces it is just more general taxes and registration/personal property taxes. It becomes overly punitive to those who need to drive, but not much. I would rather see tolls used than yet more vehicle fees or general taxes used. But I see that is a privacy killer and route d

              • It's good to want privacy and to push back where you can, but it's definitely a troubling situation these days. Most of us carry our cellphones around with us, turned on. Many of us drive cars and they are newer that seem to be always connected to the Internet. We have LPR cameras all over as well.

                We're lucky this is all patchwork but eventually someone will make a really "cool" dashboard that can sync all this information up into a tidy visual and it won't be hard for someone with access to this system to

                • >"Not a very exciting future is it?"

                  No, it isn't. And it scares the crap out of me for what it means for both privacy and freedom. We are right on the verge of a disaster. Once more of these systems are interconnected and AI gets involved, it will be a type of mess that most people can't even comprehend. And I am not sure we can put that genie back in the bottle.

              • Or, we could accept that any attempt at a millage tax just won't work. This is the basic reason we HAVE general taxes. Some things can't be taxed per-use. Indeed, attempting to do so might actually be inefficient as well as incentivizing cheating.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by caseih ( 160668 )

              Even with a physical inspection that records the odometer reading, the odometer does not indicate where the miles were driven. 90% of then could be in another state which would deprive that state of revenue.

              • >"Even with a physical inspection that records the odometer reading, the odometer does not indicate where the miles were driven. 90% of then could be in another state which would deprive that state of revenue"

                How is that any different from gas tax? I can fill my car in another state and put all the miles in a different one. For most, it won't matter, due to averages.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by flink ( 18449 )

              I agree on the mileage idea, but would like to point out that only 19 of 50 states have annual inspections. You are going to need some way that isn't a PITA or a privacy issue (electronic metering) to get true mileage in the other 31.

              For EVs you could just have a machine that reads the mileage and VIN from the ODB port. It sends that info to the DMV and the registered owner gets taxed for the mileage. Could be an annual 5 minute stop at a gas station, I could even imagine such a machine being self-service. Make it mandatory for all your EV use tax to be paid up to renew your registration and/or license.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shmlco ( 594907 )

            "and tax based on annually-collected odometer readings instead, adjusted by vehicle weight"

            I also think vehicle registration fees should be based on weight, perhaps $1/lb per year. And the same amount each year, since the vehicle weight doesn't decrease.

            Perhaps fewer folks would choose oversized, overweight pickups if their fees were $a non-tax-deductable 5,000 a year.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by caseih ( 160668 )

            Some may drive little or at all, but all of them rely on goods and even services that traveled over those roads. Roads and bridges benefit every tax payer.

            • >"Some may drive little or at all, but all of them rely on goods and even services that traveled over those roads. Roads and bridges benefit every tax payer."

              Of course. But the benefit is certainly proportionally larger to those who drive proportionally more. As far as goods, the transportation cost is baked into the prices consumers pay.

          • and gets out of whack for others when fuel prices swing (because road maintenance cost doesn't swing with fuel prices; and the tax doesn't change, it is just a percent per unit of fuel, regardless of the fuel price).

            You can have a fixed tax, let say $0.5/L. Problem solved.

            But it doesn't work at all with EV's, and less effectively with HEV's

            EVs tend to be subsidized one way or another. So you may remove other subsidies and keep this one (not having to pay for gas tax). With about 1% EV on the road, this is far from a problem anyways.
            What we want is for those who drive the most to switch to EV, so that we can have cleaner air.
            But we can put a separate yearly distance tax on EV at some point.

            Actually it is very simple. Drop the gas/diesel tax completely, and tax based on annually-collected odometer readings instead, adjusted by vehicle weight. Problem solved. Most states collect the readings annually already with vehicle inspection. What I very much oppose is the government forcing people to put spy devices in their vehicles (in any form) that can monitor ANYTHING except distance.

            Gas tax is far less easy to cheat compared to odometer reading, however. So as long as there are le

            • >"You can have a fixed tax, let say $0.5/L. Problem solved."

              Yeah, that is true. In fact, I think that might be the way it works. Never paid it much attention. So a big fat "duh" on my part ;)

              >"Gas tax is far less easy to cheat compared to odometer reading, however."

              I don't think either would be easy to cheat. There is a lot of security in the car around the odometer (for obvious reasons).

              >"So as long as there are less than 10% EV on roads, I think gas tax is the best solution."

              For now, it will

        • A gas tax was in many ways the perfect (as perfect as one can get) tax.

          It may have been, except that they way gas is taxed the world over (and ESPECIALLY in the USA) means that it doesn't even cover a pittance of road maintained, let alone societal impact of motor vehicles (crash cleanup, etc) and isn't even close to committing a single dollar for new roads.

          If you want to go all in on gas tax / road tax then do so, but you will get sticker shock when you realise what a well built and maintained road network actually costs.

        • Personally, I think road maintenance should come out of general tax funds. Everybody benefits from roads, directly or indirectly.

          Let's do that for health care also, for the very same reason.

      • Re:Or we can tax appropriately (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jsonn ( 792303 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @08:58AM (#65884427)
        Because it is effectively a tax on the poor. For the millionaire, spending a dollar on a toll road doesn't matter. For someone surviving on food stamps, it does. The benefit for the rich is not the time saved on the road, but the economic impact the road has and they don't even directly pay for it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The more egregious tax on the poor is that the only real transportation option in so many areas is the car.

          So just participating in the workforce can have a starting cost of about $12,000 dollars a year - it a huge burden.

      • It's going to highly depend on your view of government and fairness. It's doubtful I'm going to be able to change a person's view on this.

        However, 'infrastructure' has always been complicated when it comes to government versus private. The electrical grid, water system, roads, railways...

        I don't know where you sit on these. I personally think infrastructure definitely has a government role to play. It's been that way since the dawn of time. Roads were built by the Roman empire for example. It's a part of ci

      • The problem is fixed prices for essential goods are only fair in a world in which everyone has the same income.

        Now it's unavoidable that'll happen sometimes anyway, but if it's avoidable, then it should be avoided.

        THAT SAID, taxpayer funded roads is the state giving preference to a specific form of transportation. So I'm not as anti-toll as others might be on this.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          There's no alternative to roads. Even if you manage to take all passenger cars off the roads, you still have busses and trucks, and your road still has to be maintained. Moreover, since most road wear is caused by these heavy vehicles, the maintenance will be more or less the same as before.

      • It's far from a perfect system. It's not as if people had the choice being a toll road and an alternative in most places.
        Some roads have tolls, and some don't. And it's quite arbitrary and unfair.
        Two persons pay the same amount of tax and drive the same distance per year in the same model of car, but person A has a toll road between his home and his job, while person B has a free road supported by taxes. Why does person B deserves a free road and A doesn't?
        Sure, person A could avoid the toll by making a det

      • Profiting a private corporation isn't taxing. Do I need to send you a dictionary? I hear they're going out of style.

        The owner of the factory who has workers who drive on a road benefit from a road. The owner of the business who sells to workers who drive on a road benefit from a road. This is why roads should be paid for with taxes, not tolls. Toll roads are a sign of a failure of governance. This includes when people drive across a bridge to get to their jobs, because there isn't enough housing nearb

      • How are toll roads not "taxing appropriately"?

        Let's say you're driving on the road to commute to your dead-end job where you're barely earning enough to make ends meet. You pay $8 each round trip.

        Then we have the owner of the company you work for. He's driving on the same road on his way to make significantly more money than you do. He also pays $8.

        That's the problem with consumption taxes.

      • The people who benefit from them directly are the ones who support them

        No, objectively not. The people who *use* them are the one who support them. The people who benefit them include people who don't use them who don't end up having their local roads turned into a parking lot.

        The beneficiary of any road includes anyone who drives on another road with someone who decided to take the toll road instead. They are freeloading bottom feeding "I don't want to pay tax for infrastructure" scum.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Targon ( 17348 )

        Republicans keep pushing for not taxing the very wealthy at even the same percentage as people who make $50,000/year, so that is what makes it so everything is "too expensive" for government. At the same time, they keep pushing to spend more on the military, because they are the party of war, not of defense, but just to wage war and spend unlimited amounts of money doing it.

  • I remember way too many memes passing by unsolicited, looking forward to fuel getting under 2$ per gallon once Trump got elected. This is a way, you now. Cut the tax on fuel, make it all toll roads. There, yet another promise delivered. (/s)

  • Private corporation pick-pockets (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Other Neo ( 6845338 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @05:00AM (#65884159)
    If tolls actually went to the upkeep of roads, then there really should not be an issue. What does come up every time is that governments/states/cities hand over the collection of tolls to a private company with little oversight. Way too many issues of these companies pocketing the bulk of the fees and tossing a few coins in the direction of the officials to keep them happy.

    • That's ironic for me as a Southern Californian. I find the toll roads are the newer, nicer roads that you enjoy driving on. Shame we were spending all the state's money on that silly train to no where, else we could of done major updated to the 5, 8 and 10 freeways instead. I'm sure some more up north need attention as well.

  • The link is paywalled ! State roads may get turned into toll roads, but NOT Federally funded interstates.....

  • A lot of toll road proponents seem to think that the "user pays" model should fund roads, and that people who don't use a certain road shouldn't be funding them. But that is a completely stupid approach. Public resources need to be publicly funded because the correct model is not "user pays" but "beneficiary pays" and people who don't use toll roads benefit greatly by not having people who do use toll roads drive through their towns / neighbourhoods.

    • Depends how wide a net you want this tax to go. Does the whole state need to pay this toll tax, just that County or just the City? I know if I live in Northern California, I don't think I should be paying for a Southern California toll road.

      So from that angle, I don't mind toll roads charging people that are actually using them. I use them myself. The time savings can sometimes be huge and they are generally much newer roads, so more pleasant to drive on anyway. I will say I don't use them every day but for

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eriks ( 31863 )

        Almost all the damage is being done by tractor trailers

        This! Road damage = 4th power of the axle weight. Heavy load operators should be paying the vast majority of the costs for roads. The way it is now is *gasp* socialism benefiting trucking companies.

      • Does the whole state need to pay this toll tax

        Federal, as is already the case. The federal government already commits a shitton of money for development of cities. Roads come out of this budget. The problem is that between state and federal funds roads get built that local councils can't afford to maintain. It's a broken system. Private toll operators can fix the road, but only if they distribute costs unfairly through society, not just for the people who may or may not benefit from the road, but also a toll is a regressive tax that helps keep the poor

  • Our road network, free for all to use, was once a crown jewel of America.

    Now they're picking the jewel out of the crown, smashing it, and running off with the jagged pieces as if they were prizes.

    Next I guess I should do the rail network. If you could arrange all US freight trucks end to end in the right place, they would reach the moon. And then you'd have a cool physics toy!

    Speaking of cool physics toys, next conversation, AGW

  • Good example of a consumption tax (Score:3)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @08:57AM (#65884425)

    You pay for what you use.

    We need to replace the income tax with something similar. Get rid of April 15 and all of paperwork hassles to comply, and hope you got it right. The real benefit would be the government no longer knows all of your income and spending.

    • Re:Good example of a consumption tax (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr. Barky ( 152560 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @10:09AM (#65884497)

      Maybe we should have pay-to-use Police and Fire departments? What, you don't have the money to pay for the Police to stop that burglar? Sorry, we won't help. House on fire but you can't find your credit card (oops, left it in the house!)? Sorry, can't put it out. Call 911 and ask for the expedited service? That'll cost you.

      (Yes, I know in the good old days these were private services... but there's a good reason that it became the responsibility of the government - it just works better.)

      There is a reason that we have general taxes. There are some things that can't be efficiently made into a consumption tax. Roads are amongst them, especially when you remove the possibility of a gas tax (technological changes have changed the feasibility). Tolls can only be on certain roads (unless you want a surveillance state that records your every movement and bills you for it).

      • We're already in a surveillance state. The bolts are just continued to be tightened now.

        • Yes, but on top of that do you want to be billed for your every movement? More seriously, the current state of affaires is that there are still a lot of information silos rather than true centralized data collection. Centralizing it to collect a tax will make things far, far worse. There is no way that information won't be used for other purposes.

      • Re:Good example of a consumption tax (Score:4, Interesting)

        by votsalo ( 5723036 ) on Sunday December 28, 2025 @02:21AM (#65885873)

        Police and Fire departments, Military, etc. could be paid for by the other things you buy. You don't normally buy these services directly.

        But you do use the roads directly. Most people have a choice (especially in cities). Taxing vehicle road use would promote public transportation and biking, which is a good thing.

        • I realize this probably won't be read by many people as the story is getting old.

          There may be perverse effects to taxing driving and might have the opposite effect of what you think it does. A dedicated source of funding reduces incentives for the government to reduce use - indeed the government may encourage increased use as it becomes profitable to do so.

          If funding comes out of general taxes, there are incentives to the government to encourage alternatives. It costs less to maintain a road for a bicycle t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DewDude ( 537374 )

      They talked about replacing income tax with a flat federal sales tax for years.

      Well..they've effectively put a federal tax on everything we buy...AND they're keeping income taxes.

      So...no...the problem is you don't pay for what you use. You pay for what everyone else uses and some fuckers gold toilet.

    • You pay for what you use.

      Taxes are supposed to be based on how well this whole "society" thing is working out for you. The only way to do that is to means test, otherwise you're over-taxing the poor and under-taxing the wealthy.

    • You pay for what you use.

      Yeah but what about the people who benefit? Can I pass tax deduction onto the person whose road I didn't drive on? That freeloading bastard now has one less car in front of him, he should pay for that.

      Consumption tax for society benefiting infrastructure is a fundamentally stupid concept.

  • They just need to switch over to taxing by mileage. My state has yearly safety inspections already. Just charge an additional fee at inspection time that is based on current odometer reading minus previous reading from last year.

  • Not a fan of tolls (Score:3)

    by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Saturday December 27, 2025 @10:24AM (#65884527) Homepage
    For multiple reasons.

    Not efficient. There is a cost to administer the collection of the toll. Actually a pretty massive infrastructure is required. All the roads these days need a special reader to pick up the toll tag and a plate reader for those that don't have the special tag. Then there is the bill mailout structure. It is not cheap. From https://www.kxan.com/investiga... [kxan.com] "TTEC’s contract was originally worth $145 million. " That is 145M that could have gone to road maint or bldg. And that is just one contract for billing. There are several in TX for different areas of the toll system.

    Lost lanes. In TX many of the roads add a toll lane instead of expanding the "free" road. The area and cost required to provide a segmented toll lane consumes precious area. Area that could have been used for another actual lane instead of transitioning on/off the toll lane. Not to mention the additional construction costs incurred to build those transition lanes.

    Billing often fucks up. https://www.texastribune.org/2... [texastribune.org] https://www.star-telegram.com/... [star-telegram.com] https://thetexan.news/issues/t... [thetexan.news] It really isn't that uncommon and in the true tradition of tech, abysmal customer service.

    The toll system adds yet another layer of citizen tracking. I get you're already tracked pretty closely with cell, but at least supposedly LEO needs a warrant to access that data.

  • A higher highway death toll? Proponents of this have to be careful at milking their cash cow lest some who are either strapped for cash or just downright cheap get back off those roads and onto "surface roads" and drive, say, US40 instead of Interstate 70, where likelihood of crashes and traffic deaths are higher. Plus, congestion to towns that these old highways run thru could be another price to pay, as those places start screaming for a bypass, that also may go unused if it is again tolled and those

    • I used to travel the Pennsylvania Turnpike a lot between the Ohio border and Breezewood a lot back in my military days when I would be on leave. That is one crazy winding twisty road! In the winter it was a white knuckle nightmare, LOL.

  • They have to be paid for one way or another.
    Florida has no state income tax. So would you rather pay at the toll booth or out of your paycheck?
    By charging at the toll booths, tourists pay for much of the road construction.

    Whatever works out best for you, remember: nothing is for nothing.

  • Many here seem to not understand that tolls are NOT a form of taxation. Predation is a much better term. In many cases, roads originally paid for by the state are being transformed into tolls roads for "maintenance support" and being turned into private property. The tolls go to the new owners, not the state. The private corporations do not set the tolls fees to recoup the maintenance costs. They set the toll fees at the value that maximizes their profits: optimize(vehicles_using(t)*fee_charged(t)) ...
  • I've said this for decades, and now we're way past worrying about the government tracking us, apparently. The best systems have feedback loops, and this would be a great feedback loop: The roads traveled would get the correct amount of maintenance money, regardless of politics, bad budgeting, shady deals, hefty tax increases, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hentes ( 2461350 )

      Sounds like ant colony optimization [wikipedia.org].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        Interesting. I once found a minor ant infestation at my folks' house while they were away on vacation. I couldn't find the hole they were using to get into the house and to the kitchen's garbage can, so I let them grow in number until I saw their eventual parade line lead to a hole under a window on the other side of the house. Some caulk fixed the issue.

        And I think uncles should use the toll roads too.

  • The Ohio Turnpike used to be affordable years ago. Now many in my area avoid it because of the extremely high cost. The local routes suffer from all the excess use as well. Too many tractor trailers on local routes as a result.

  • I would support toll roads if...
    Detection of vehicles was totally automatic and effortless, with no stopping at toll booths.
    ALL of the money raised went toward highway maintenance and construction, All of it. 100%. No exceptions.

    • I would support toll roads if... Detection of vehicles was totally automatic and effortless, with no stopping at toll booths. ALL of the money raised went toward highway maintenance and construction, All of it. 100%. No exceptions.

      And pay for the electronic tolling infrastructure - equipment, staff, etc ...

      Of course, those tolls only pay for the toll roads, what about the non-toll roads in the area? Guess you'll need some sort of tax, like a fuel tax / EV surcharge, or roll it up into the local taxes... And when people start avoiding the toll roads, toll income will fall causing the toll to increase, and local roads will suffer, needing higher local taxes for maintenance ...

      I don't mind a toll road if it's to pay off/down the

  • you guys handle every single thing the wrong way, it's hilarious. every problem is made worse by privatization, again and again and again, but do you notice? no

    just dogma dogma dogma all the time

  • The federal gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993. In fiscal 2024, the federal government spent $27 billion more on road maintenance than it collected from fuel taxes

    Some Republicans now want to buy back pay-to-drive roads and make them free.

    Roads and their maintenance have to get paid somehow. Republicans are almost uniformly against higher taxes, unless it's their President imposing tariffs by fiat w/o the consent of Congress, and they're usually pushing for lower taxes, for rich(er) people and corporations anyway. If roads won't be paid through (higher) taxes or tolls, then how? Everyone and every company either uses and/or replies on roads to some extent, even, maybe especially, million/billion/trillion-aires.

    Personally, I'm for fundi

  • (Solo)
    Almost heaven, West Virginia
    Through the toll booth, I’m gonna pin ya
    Life is old there, older than the trees
    But I’m paying five bucks just to feel the breeze
    (Chorus)
    Toll roads, take my gold
    To the place I was told
    Electronic, EZ-Passing
    Take my money, toll roads
    (Solo)
    All my memories, gathered 'round her
    Concrete lady, highway bounder
    Grey and dusty, painted lines so white
    I’ve been stuck in traffic since Friday night
    (Chorus)
    Toll roads, take my gold
    To the place I was told
    El
  • ... would be to make all major highways & roads pay per mile with a basic standing charge and have a common unified system for collecting revenues. It would collect more money than tolls, put the burden of road maintenance on those who use it most and incentivize people to reduce car use. But that's too sensible and America didn't become grotesquely reliant on oil and tarmac by being sensible.

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