Politics and Policy In case you haven’t heard, there is a push on to use tolls as a method to finance highway improvements in Washington State. One of the suggestions (well on its way to implementation) is to add another car-pool lane to I-405, but to allow people who pay extra get to use the lane as well as high-occupancy vehicles. The suggestion is being advanced because the parsimonious anti-tax people in Washington State never met a tax they would accept, arguing that the government could always, somewhere, come up with the money to do anything they want it to do if they just cut “waste and fraud”. So while they complain incessantly about the traffic mess, any transportation project is virtually impossible to pass. They are STILL complaining about the nickel gas tax which doesn’t come anywhere close to doing what needs to be done. I have seen toll roads at work in other states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey), and overseas (Japan). They are a nuisance and impede traffic. Drivers plan their routes to avoid toll booths, thereby transferring the cost to other roadways and neighborhoods. The toll booths invariably create a bottleneck. Even electronic tolls are difficult to enforce, adding to the burdens of our State Patrol officers. In Japan, a family taking a weekend trip by car has to have a substantial amount of their budget set aside for tolls along the way. A Saturday golf outing can easily cost more than $100 in tolls, while adding a couple of hours to the trip. And now we have a new study which says that toll collection booths are the most dangerous feature on our highways today. In one state, over half the accidents occurred at toll booths. Does anyone remember the celebration which followed the removal of the toll booths on the 520 bridge, which finally occurred after a fatal accidents there? http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_041906NABtollplaza_dangersJM.4e66fb74.html And tolls create yet another bureaucracy devoted to collecting the tolls, hiring and supervising toll collectors, accounting for the money, etc. This just makes the method of funding the project even more inefficient, and once the project is eventually paid off, there is bureaucratic inertia against dismantling the toll system. Eventually tolls get collected just to pay for the toll collection system (although there are other purposes stated, such as “ongoing repairs and maintenance requirements”. My final objection to toll highways is a philosophical one. Public highways should be just that – public. You shouldn’t have to pay extra money to use one. You especially shouldn’t have your own special lane set aside if you are rich enough to pay the extra toll. It reminds me too much of the “center lane” on Soviet roadways for use by important Politburo officials. When I first read of it, I said “Thank God, nothing like that can happen here”. I guess I was wrong. Posted by RHP6033        Copyright 2006-2007 - Brookridge Associates Inc. All rights reserved.