Indiana approves interstate tolling

Yeah, thanks, thats why my comment about other routes. I-80 is a tollway - why should it surprise anyone that the others would eventually meet the same fate?

So like I said, why is this news? It was inevitable.

 

If you have missed it, Indiana and other states have been spending the fuel revenue tax income inappropriately for decades.

 

Sounds like a great idea from a state with some of the worst roads in the country.

 

Indiana is the state with the worst roads in the country.

 

Less efficient how? A toll taxes only those who use the roadway, and only to the extent that they use the roadway. Plus, toll revenue can be retained directly by the tolling authority and spent on repair/improvement/expansion projects without having to be deposited into some other fund and without being subject to diversion. Any other arrangement is intrinsically less efficient - and less equitable.

Granted, I don't think a state should be able to impose a toll on a federal highway, but apparently federalism doesn't apply when it comes to money.

 

Toll revenue can be strictly reserved for the toll road. It can also be shared, like in Pennsylvania. Or diverted by using loopholes, like in Harris County. Corruption is often a problem, as well. From my reading of the Indiana bill, it looks like the toll revenue generated on the interstates would be put into a general road fund, but the language is very broad and I didn't read it very closely.

But let's assume every one acts ethically and toll revenues are used only for the toll roads.

It cost NY $350 million to convert 70 toll plazas to fully electronic systems and RI $40 million to build one new gantry. Connecticut estimated it would cost $450-600 million to install toll systems and $150 million a year to operate them.

There are approximately 40 exits on I-70, so call it 80 collection points at a cost of $10 million each - total $800,000,000 in up front costs. Then annual operating costs of $15 million (based some quick math based off the Illinois toll roads) - call it $1 Billion in new costs over 10 years, conservatively.

For 1 road without spending any money to maintain that road.

That's why it's less efficient.

Spend a little time researching RiverLink - supposed to be self supporting but has required subsidies from the general fund every year.

 

Ok, so it's not that it's tax inefficient, it's that capex and opex are way too high.

 

More taxes, just named something else.

 

The same problems you mentioned occurred during the times of the railroads. History is just repeating itself. If James J Hill taught one important lesson, it’s that private production beats central planning and control on both state and federal level.

The road bureaucracies have been robbing the people of who they steal taxes from, and have returned to their customers a bloated, inefficient, crumbling infrastructure.

When they fail, their solution is confiscating more of the people’s money, while telling you that if the free market managed roads, people would be in peril. Take a trip on the belt parkway, or the BQE and experience the wonders of central planning and control of the roads.