The Interstate system switches to open road tolls- what would you do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A couple of hours ago I was chatting with my father regarding tolls in New York City bridges and tunnels, and I thought about this scenario-

By 2017, every toll system in the United States must be interoperable with each other and a national electronic toll system is in place. Here’s the law signed in 2012.

Let’s assume this future scenario: the United States decides to toll every interstate to keep the system running. Obviously it’s hypothetical, then again, we put Donald Trump into the republican nomination, and Hillary Clinton had poor judgment for IT security protocols. Whatever. At the time, all tolls are electronic and to use the system, you need a transponder. Maybe a chip inside a government issued sticker since its the future (it might not even be that too). You pay yearly to acquire the transponder and you fill money with either your ATM card or something other than cash.

Additionally, states have the option to toll various us routes and highways other than the interstate system (Garden State Parkway, Florida Turnpike, Lincoln Tunnel, Lake Shore Drive (hypothetically), various other routes. What would you do in this scenario?

2

Most likely, I’d drive on the same roads and with the same frequency I currently do. For me, that’s very little travel on interstate and intrastate highways, but then I’m boring.

3

I voted for #1. I’ll have money anyway due to my future job, and with fewer cars on the roads, It’s going to be easier to get to rush hour.

4

Keep driving, bite the bullet. I would be extremely thankful though I am no longer a commuter and only use back roads.

5

Obviously, it would matter how high the tolls were. If they were particularly high, I’d avoid some casual trips. In such a scenario, they’re likely to use congestion pricing, meaning that the tolls at rush hour and other busier times of day would be higher but lowered at off-peak hours. The idea is, of course, to encourage people to shift their commute hours. This is already being done on some toll roads in some places.

6

Keep driving and bite the bullet. But I would try to convince the government to try a means of taxing all users of the roads – not just highways – by something such as, say, a small surcharge on the fuel or electricity they buy.

We only have one toll road within Michigan, so I’ve not been arsed to try to make this argument with my own government.

7

it wouldn’t affect me as I use public transportation and use trains and such to go out of town …

8

Is there any language in that bill that would impede a state from simply declaring that all its roads are toll, and milking the cash cow? Or is it grandfathered, so only states that have already gone toll-berserk will be eligible, and the free-road states forever left out?

I suspect that the only effect of this law is to enable all hologram readers to read all holograms.

9

Wouldn’t affect my day-to-day driving, but I sure as heck would take fewer or shorter (in distance) road-trip vacations.

10

For what driving I do, I would probably live with it. But to be honest little of my driving is interstate.

11

I just want to note that this concept may not be all that far off - and in the near future.

Roads are now funded, in large part, by gas taxes. See the verbiage at the pump (or wherever in your State).
As car either:

  1. Start sipping instead of gulping gas.
  2. Stop using gas entirely

That tax income is not going to work.

Some other way will need to be found if you want the potholes fixed.

Historical Note: “Freeway” was a Californian term used to note that it paid for roads WITHOUT tolls: hence, “Free” vs “Toll” -way.

12

Call up the Duck and let those truckers roll!

13

We have lots of toll roads and bridges around here. Not having to stop makes it painless. What’s the objection?

14

[ol]
[li]Citizen doesn’t want to pay while driving.[/li][li]Citizen doesn’t have an ATM card- he/she pays in cash.[/li][li]Citizen likes to keep his privacy.[/li][li]Citizen has trouble installing a transponder (course, being the future, it could be a sticker.)[/li][li]Citizen goes over the speed limit.[/li][li]Citizen is like Master Shake: If he can’t pay the electric bill (Episode: Super Squatter), he’s probably not using the system. :rolleyes:[/li][/ol]For a while my father wasn’t interested in using the system until I convinced him (during a sale on cash deposits for the I-Pass system when the I-294/57 interchange was partially opened) to get one, and the results have been positive since. My mother has since linked her debit card to his account (I’m in charge of the technical stuff since both of them are too old to understand this computer stuff- especially my father), and we’re in good hands. My father still has moments not to use the system to save money, but then again, we’re saving some money (and time) heading to Wisconsin due to the transponder.

The bad news is hundreds of people will lose their jobs if we switch to open road electronic tolling, the good news is that the American vision of open roadways are still intact.

15

We’ve only two interstates in our entire State, so plenty of highways to use … US 101 and US 26 are effective substitutes.

16

From here in Minnesota, the objection is to having toll roads at all. We have none in our state, and probably never will. A couple of such projects have been proposed; the extremely negative reaction of the public killed them quickly.

17

We will have a nasty period between the two transitions:

  1. Car ownership model - private, personal cars vs shared pool of cars (whoever owns the cars in the pool(s).
  2. Paying for roads: gas tax vs toll.

There will be a time when (especially the poor) people will own and need cars but do not participate in the electronic economy - they get an infusion of credit on their EBT (?) cards (“Food Stamps”) and use that for money. Some will undoubtedly continue receiving Benefit (of some sort(s)) Check and cash it, using the cash for everything.
These are the people you friendly local branch do NOT WANT having accounts (WFB jokes go elsewhere). They cost more to administer than they generate.
This group of people know quite well what the Banking system thinks of them.

They will have to have someone to either take their toll payments in cash or at least hand them a bill to mail in payment (now you know what happens when people get to a toll booth and THEN find out they don’t have their wallets with them).

Once either private ownership completely dies (guess who will be the last to be able to have a driverless car drive up to them? these are the people who live in areas taxis don’t go) and whoever owns the car and attends to its bills, we’ll be fine with toll roads everywhere.
As long as there is a “Cash Pay” lane for the tollbooth, we’ll be fine.
If we take away the “Cash Pay” lane and still expect people to own and care for the car, there will be problems.

(yes, I know, the OP is asking about 'Just the Interstate System"; I am pointing out thaat the reality will be a larger picture)

18

I’ll do what I do now when faced with the decision whether to drive on toll roads or free roads: calculate or estimate how much the free route saves per extra hour of driving. If I save more than $15 or $20 for every extra hour of driving, after accounting for all expenses, I’ll take the back route.

For example, the fastest route from my house to Portland is via the Maine Turnpike, but I usually take two-lane surface highways which take a few minutes extra. The back-roads route saves on tolls and on gasoline (both because it’s fewer miles and because I get better fuel economy at slower speeds) and on vehicle depreciation (fewer miles again). It works out the same as if the Turnpike Authority were paying me $30 (tax free) for every extra hour of driving I do on the back roads.

On the other hand, there are no good routes toward Boston that avoid the New Hampshire Turnpike (except at times of the day that don’t usually apply to my trips), so I gladly pay the toll. The money I’d save for every extra hour of driving is probably less than the minimum wage and it’s just not worth it.

Of course it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do a detailed calculation like that for routes I don’t follow often, but I’ve gotten pretty good at estimating which routes are worth it and which aren’t.

19

Actually back in those days is when I first got in the habit of buses and trains; a habit I continue to this day. Although I must admit it was easier back then - neither form of transportation has aged well.

20

This is the exact system we already have here in greater Miami today. And have had for some years.

For $4 you buy a stick-on transponder about the size & shape of a credit card. Every grocery store, pharmacy, and convenience store sells them. First you stick it on your windshield. Then you go online and register your vehicle plate, the transponder number, and a credit/debit card. You can configure it to hit your card every time, or just grab $25 or $50 whenever it gets low.

Then you go drive. The system reads your transponder when you drive past a toll point. If it can’t do that, or if you don’t have a transponder, it reads your license plate. If you don’t already have an account with them they’ll send the registered owner of the plate a paper bill in the mail. With an extra charge for the extra hassle for them billing you separately.

Failure to pay the bill(s) results in no vehicle registration renewal until paid. Plus in theory they could see your plate when you happen to drive past a toll point then vector a cop to where you are. Although I haven’t heard of that actually happening.

We now have dedicated toll roads and also segregated toll lanes (AKA “express lanes”) on the non-tolled interstates. If you want to save time you spend the money. If not, not.

The basic idea is to keep the price as low as possible until the express lanes start to slow below about 50mph. Then they start raising the price to keep the express speed above 50mph. IOW, they’re auctioning off the right to drive with minimal congestion.

On the interstates the tolls for the segregated express lanes vary from zero if traffic is light up to about $1 per mile if you’re bypassing a total all-traffic-stopped blockage. During a typical morning or evening rush hour, bypassing 10 miles of 10mph bumper-to-bumper while going 50-70 mph yourself costs about $3. For me that represents a massive bargain.

At the risk of sounding elitist, there are lots of dangerously bad insane scofflaw drivers in FL. Getting in the segregated toll lanes eliminates about 90% of them. And that’s true whether the toll is zero or $10. Three-plus axle trucks are also prohibited which is nice.

It’s pretty painless. The Big Brother implications are obvious. But with everything else going on like ubiquitous cameras that can plate-recognize cars and face-recognize pedestrians I’m not thinking this is the privacy hill to die on.