Toll Fees in TX

[tremorviolet]

@BobLibDem

I’m trying to picture this, having designed more bridges and reviewed more plans than I care to count. First of all, are they round columns? I rather doubt it since that formwork would be close to impossible. If rectangular, do they taper in both directions, along C/L pier only, or transverse to C/L pier only? If they taper in transverse direction, does you cap width also vary? Also, don’t your contractors complain about the formwork? Seems like you’ve got a tail wagging the dog here. Why aren’t bridge designers in charge of bridge design?

Well, everything was set 'cause of the aesthetic plan. I don’t know who the heck came up with it but it certainly wasn’t an engineer.

All the columns were rectangular and 2’x4’ (pretty massive) and the outside columns had the reverse taper on the outside only. The taper did not change where the CL of the column was located. The taper ratio was already set and the overhang was also already set so you had to change the column spacing on every bent.

Truthfully, it probably looked Ok on the standard two bent overpases where there wasn’t a big change in elevation. But on this long bridge which had a farily decent elevation change, it was gonna look crappy.

OK, just spent ten minutes trying to draw a picture but it won’t work beasue the browser strips out the spaces no matter what I try. Argh.

[Dewey_Finn]

@adam yax

Get a Toll-Tag and spend less in tolls and spend less time in line at the toll booths.

A few months ago I visited Dallas for a few days on business, and the toll booths were a pain without a toll tag. It would have been nice if I could have gotten one from the car rental company, even if they charged the tolls back to me.

[nivlac]

@pace

toll fees are so expensive in TX! I lived in Illinois most my life and never payed more than 50 cents at a time–here it’s $1.25 for the first 3 miles and thereafter! Ridiculous! Why are they higher in TX vs other states?

This is why whenever I travel to Houston, I always have a big bag of quarters. Every so many miles I’ll have to drop 5 quarters in the toll basket (this is on the Sam Houston Tollway). This is quite a departure for me since in California we only have to pay bridge tolls.

[robcaro]

Don’t feel bad. Here in Colombia, the tolls are usually 5,000 pesos or more, and there are numerous toll booths on the Autopista (expressway.) That amounts to more than $2.00 US per toll.

[UncleBeer]

The tollways in Chicago and NW Indiana are horrible. There are car-swallowing holes, there are falling bridges, there is not enough road surface for the vehicles on the road, etc, etc, etc.

This is currently being corrected. There is a massive construction project on the Kingery-Borman Expressway right now. Essentially all of it from the end of the Indiana Turnpike to the Northwest Tollway in Illinois and beyond to the west, is being rebuilt, including all bridges overpasses and exit/entrance ramps. Scheduled for completion in Spring 2007, I believe.

http://www.kingeryexpressway.com/
http://www.in.gov/dot/div/specialprojects/borman/

Additionally, the other tollways in the Chicago area are pretty much all (~90% of the 274 mile total) slated for upgrades in next 10 years as part of $5.3 billion plan. And the Skyway reconstruction was recently completed in November 2004.
http://www.illinoistollway.com/portal/page?_pageid=53,182081,53_182110:53_182293&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

[Hallowmass]

@pace

in Houston, this particular toll is called, “Beltway 8.”

Actually, Beltway 8 isn’t a toll road. A long stretch of it runs beside the Sam Houston Tollway, though, which is $1.25 (non EZ-Tag) every few miles. However, from the Sam Houston Tollway, you can merge, free of charge, onto almost all of the major highways without having to stop. Have they completed the connection to 249 yet?

Anyway, during rush hours, you can often get where you’re going faster if you stay off the tollways and stay on Beltway 8, even though it has a lot of stoplights.

[MAGunter]

At the rate they are going, the tolls will NEVER stop.

That’s exactly the concern so many of us have. IIRC, I-30 (now the Tom Landry Highway) through Dallas used to be a toll road and there was a big hubbub over getting them to finally remove the tolls. That was back in the '70s though I think, and before my time-this is just what was passed on to me.

So when they did the Dallas North Tollway, most people knew it was going to be a long drawn out process, and we all knew that once it was paid off they wouldn’t remove their tolls. And now, it’s turned out to be true.

I don’t know what the NTTA’s subjective motivations are, but there’s a legitimate need to extend the tollway. The areas to the north of the tollway (beyond its current end point) have been rapidly growing for some time, and there’s currently no good high-speed route into Dallas. I know some people who live up there, and they’re very much looking forward to the time when the Tollway reaches their part of town.

But see, the theory behind toll roads is that the people that use the roads pay for them. Growing up in East Dallas and going to high school in North Dallas, I used it quite a bit for those 4 years, and my father used it everyday for work as did thousands of other commuters. The Dallas North Tollway was paid off by the people that used it, which is fine.

But now the tolls are remaining not to change or improve the DNT, but first to pay for the George Bush Turnpike and now changes to Highway 121. Thing is, many of the people that used the DNT don’t use the GBT or 121. GBT extends from Irving through Carrollton and Plano down to Wylie. In the rare instance that DNT users would use it, they’d be paying a toll-but as it stands DNT users would rarely use the GBT and are still stuck holding the bag for it. And Highway 121 is even further outside of Dallas proper, and in fact I’m not sure it even enters Dallas County.

That’s the problem I have with it. People that aren’t using it are paying for it, which IMO defies the logic behind tollroads.

Then again, that’s the MO of all the North of Dallas suburbs. They all want to live in their little suburban utopia and exploit Dallas’ resources (see: Dallas having the only public/county hospital in the entire region).