DoT Investigating Tax Per Mile

[GGT]

Yes, the Tri-state tollway has tolls, but most of the expressways in the Chicago area (including the Kennedy/Dan Ryan and LSD which get VERY congested) don't.

Yeah! A couple of years ago we were stuck on the Dan Ryan trying to get to O'Hare (or maybe Midway, I forget). Something like six lanes of traffic going each way. Idling, creeping, crawling. Funky haze wafting above the cars in the heat, little rainbows of pollution in the sky. Nice to be the passenger and take a nap, wake up and ask "Are we there yet?" Grumpy driver says NO! we're averaging five miles an hour! and go back to sleep.

Some "expressway", huh.

My local traffic is the same but on a smaller scale. Our city "bypass" must have had some short-term planners involved, because Route 30 goes from an exit off the Turnpike to a State "highway". Fast clip of 70 mph to 55 mph, lots of signs and exits every few meters, to a sudden......40 mph with a traffic light on a state "road"! So many folks were whizzing through (thinking it was really a Bypass) and hitting the traffic light at full tilt, causing horrible and deadly accidents. The bright answer from PennDot was to install a laser type blinker on top of the traffic light. Morons. The only people who know it goes abruptly from high-speed "cruise control" to a fricking STOP LIGHT are the locals. Everyone else gets a ticket, or causes an accident.

Route 30 started out as a "bypass" from local Market Streets, but quickly became several exits from high-speed highways and the turnpike, while also being a local roadway. Older people will still give directions from Market Street in Gettysburg into Philly via the Main Line, going through Amish country and towns like Blue Ball and Intercourse, on Route 30 East bound. Kind of like PA's version of A1A on the Atlantic coast, or Route 66 on the west coast.....for those who remember that.

[wiggin]

Yeah! A couple of years ago we were stuck on the Dan Ryan trying to get to O'Hare (or maybe Midway, I forget). Something like six lanes of traffic going each way. Idling, creeping, crawling. Funky haze wafting above the cars in the heat, little rainbows of pollution in the sky. Nice to be the passenger and take a nap, wake up and ask "Are we there yet?" Grumpy driver says NO! we're averaging five miles an hour! and go back to sleep.

Chicago is one of the most congested cities in America, at least in terms of commute times. Though I'm not sure what airport you were trying to get to from the Dan Ryan - you normally take the Stevenson SW from downtown to get to Midway, and take the JFK north to get to O'Hare. The Dan Ryan goes from downtown more or less due south to Indiana.

[GGT]

Like I said, I was the confined passenger. We went from a funeral and wake in Western Springs, to a cemetery in (gah, I can't remember if it was Hinsdale or Downer's Grove...) Anyhow, we also made stops at Lincoln Park and Goethe Park and made a stop at Graceland cemetery (by Wrigley Field) for sentimental reasons. My sister just HAD to try some fricking vegan restaurant on some obscure side street, thanks to her Prius computer making "personalized" suggestions, all before getting me and my son to the airport in time.

Half the party was driving back into Indiana, half the party was flying back to the east coast. Not much of a "party" in any way. I drove part way, used the train part way....hitched a car-ride part way. Messy any way you look at it.

[Wraith]

There are dynamic pricing strategies to keep traffic at a reasonable level (i.e. to reduce congestion just enough at a given time to collect revenues without sending people en masse to other routes). There's also the aforementioned 'express lanes' that encourage either HOVs, buses, or a high, dynamic toll. This has been successfully piloted in a number of places.

If you're using it as a major funding source for the infrastructure though, then that limits how dynamic you can make it, and means that there's a point where you have to start chasing traffic through those other routes to make ends meet, which itself raises costs. I don't think this will work except possibly as a subsidy for other funding options (general fund or mileage-based or whatever).

[GGT]

Do you mean Roads to Nowhere?

[Khendraja'aro]

If you're using it as a major funding source for the infrastructure though, then that limits how dynamic you can make it, and means that there's a point where you have to start chasing traffic through those other routes to make ends meet, which itself raises costs. I don't think this will work except possibly as a subsidy for other funding options (general fund or mileage-based or whatever).

It would also mean that the high-traffic areas would pay for the low-traffic areas as well. And while those don't need maintenance as often, at some point they will.

[GGT]

Isn't this partly why we enacted Airport, Hotel, rental car, or other consumption-based "tourist" taxes in the first place?



I mean, they may be called surcharges or service fees, but they're really just taxes meant to.....maintain or improve transportation and other Public services (electricity, potable water, septic sewerage) by charging those who use it most, without over-burdening the local population who's already paying for things like public education, emergency response fire and police coverage, and infrastructure repair and maintenance.

[Khendraja'aro]

Yes, but such a toll system would tax the low-traffic areas not at all.

[GGT]

Yes, but such a toll system would tax the low-traffic areas not at all.

Only if they're *NOT* paying hidden taxes at the pump. That happens every day in the US.

Anecdotal Alert!

When I was younger, one of my first well-paying jobs was as a gas jerk. An employee at a Sears Gas Island (that's what it was called in the late 70s, when pumping gas was still done by "attendants" and self-pump stations were very rare. Full-serve gas stations were still the norm, that's why they weren't called "Islands")

Our prices at the pump were initially naked, and we had to add taxes. State sales tax being the most important variable. We didn't have electronic registers (or gas pumps) back then, but I can remember figuring the pump price and adding state tax @ 6%. Can't tell you the number of times grown adult men would try to fight this young girl, demanding to watch me in the tiny shelter with our cash register....because they didn't believe me when the bill was tallied. I can still hear them yelling at me, "Well how the hell does five dollars of gas mean I don't get five dollars of gas from the pump, little girl?! You're trying to rip me off, aren't ya?"

After a while, and after a whole lotta consternation, the pump price included ALL taxes. It even said so at the pump, something I had to physically show people who would fight me on their bill. That was new to many people, especially those who were driving state-to-state, with all our varying state taxes.

[wiggin]

If you're using it as a major funding source for the infrastructure though, then that limits how dynamic you can make it, and means that there's a point where you have to start chasing traffic through those other routes to make ends meet, which itself raises costs. I don't think this will work except possibly as a subsidy for other funding options (general fund or mileage-based or whatever).

I really don't think this is true. Dynamic pricing works on a daily basis within certain limits. Revenues can generally be predicted once they stabilize, and changes over time would be very gradual. Obviously any tax would change, just as taxing mileage would require rates/etc. to change eventually as people change their behavior to reduce their bill. But there would be an equilibrium reached pretty quickly.

Again, we're looking at this through different lenses. I don't see this as a revenue generator in principle but rather a policy tool. Revenue comes and goes with a lot of things, but policy can be much better tailored to meet an optimum result. Let's say the revenue is too much, but congestion remains high - that means we should increase our infrastructure spending to provide alternatives. If revenue is too low, but congestion is reduced, that's great! We've solved one problem and just need to eliminate unnecessary infrastructure or (potentially) raid a general revenue fund or something.

Yes, but such a toll system would tax the low-traffic areas not at all.

So? I don't have a problem with this. Taxes shouldn't be about 'fairness' but about making the best policy decisions. In a way, people who use only low-traffic areas are already paying by some inconvenience factor.

[GGT]

That's why it would help all things, if we had a comprehensive national energy policy.....