Are the recently built toll roads supposed to become free when the tolls have paid off the price of construction? I understand that this was the case with the freeway between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Thanks,
Rob
The one between Dallas and Fort Worth (20?) is an anomoly. At one point the North Dallas Tollway was supposed to stop charging tolls below 635 but when they started expanding north they kept the tolls in place. Now that all of the tolls in this area are handled by an outside company (the NTTA) I don’t foresee them ever stopping.
Sorry for the soapbox, but this is one of the consequences of insisting on low taxes. Roads are one of the services government should provide and if the money isn’t there then taxes have to be raised. By privatizing road work everybody in that area ends up paying more. And now that Texas likes to proclaim how business friendly we are with such low taxes the idea of tollways is taking off. Case in point is the new tollway between Austin and San Antonio and the proposed Trans Texas Highway. Sooner or later the cost to move anywhere in the state will be prohibitive.
i lived in dallas for about a year and had my florida plates the entire time. i drove on the north dallas tollway every day for free and never got a bill.
i’m glad texas is so hospitable to tourists!
I took the toll road around Toronto once. I received a bill at my house. In New York.
I paid it, too, because they made it clear I’d never get into Canada again with those plates if I didn’t.
The New York State Thruway was built with the assurance that tolls would be stopped. That was in 1954. Maintenance is always higher than tolls. And always will be.
The new 85 mph tollway south of Austin (SH130) has a 50 year agreement in place for the companies who built the road to collect a share of the tolls. Pretty sure that after the 50 years is up, the State of Texas will get to keep all the toll money rather than the tollway turning into a freeway…
Until recently, toll roads in Texas were generally built under the once it’s paid off, it becomes free model, but the local toll authorities (not private, but unelected and answer only to Austin) have somehow twisted that to mean that “it” in this context means the entire damned toll system that they have authority over.
So in Houston’s case, they long since paid off the damn Sam Houston Tollway, but have somehow continued to charge tolls- are they paying for renovations or something now?
In Dallas, the DNT is long since paid, being 40+ years old in parts, but they keep building it northward, and have also turned 121 into the Sam Rayburn Tollway, so there’s a long time they can keep charging us to take the DNT.
I think the LBJ/635 toll lanes have no pretense of ever being free- they have one of those 50 year deals like mentioned earlier.
The Thruway bonds were supposed to be paid off by 1994, with the tolls ending at that point.
The Thruway Authority, though, authorized more bonds and kept taking the tolls. If the tolls had ended, maintenance would have been paid for like all other Interstates: by Federal funds.
Indeed, at one point the Thruway Authority made a deal to get Federal money and end some tolls, A section of the Thruway in Schenectady is part of the deal: If you drive between exit 24 (I-87/Northway) and exit 25A (I-88), you pay no toll. If you exit at 25A westbound, the toll is the same as if you used Exit 24; the travel between the exits is free. Eastbound, the travel between the exits has the same deal.
The Thruway Authority got this deal on the promise they would eventually remove some of the tolls, but reneged on it (and paid a fine to the Feds). Since nobody drives on I-88, it probably doesn’t cost the Thruway very much, either.
[libertarian mode]The government shouldn’t be paying any funds. All roads should be toll roads. Only the users should pay for what they use. Roads can’t have any utility for non-users. It’s a logical impossibility.[/libertarian mode]
Where are there toll lanes on LBJ/635? I’ve driven it often, from one end to the other, and I can’t recall any tolls.
The new expansion, which is supposed to add desperately needed capacity, will also add toll lanes. At one point there was some discussion of the tolls changing in real time in response to conditions ie. more traffic=higher rate to use the fast lanes. No idea if that is still in the plan. I will be amazed if it is finished anywhere near on time and will eat my own hat if it actually reduces congestion.
Being built. They’re rebuilding almost the entirety of LBJ within Dallas- from Central to somewhere past 35, and up/down 35 for a distance as well. Part of that plan involves below-grade toll lanes where the toll varies by congestion level- low congestion = low tolls, high congestion = high tolls.
I know Dallas well enough to know that LBJ will remain the world’s largest NASCAR track in non-rush hours and one of the largest parking lots in the world during rush hours. Doesn’t matter how many toll lanes you add.
The Illinois Tri-State Tollway, according to the lavish brochures, was supposed to be made free in 20 years, when it was paid for. It was mostly built in the 1960s.
It’s still a toll road. Wonder how that happens? The state doesn’t want to give up the cash cow? Someone forgot to remove the toll booths?
I believe the 'freeway" referred to by the OP is I-30. It used to be a toll road, then the tolls were removed after it was payed for.
To the question of whether new toll roads will at some point be free, the vast majority won’t ever be free. Most of the Authorities that run the toll roads have structured the system such that tolls from a given highway will continue to help pay for its upkeep, and also pay for expansion of the highway system, even if the new highway will be a tollway.
So, keep your TxTag current.
-JR
Yeah, it’s I-30. Sometimes you’ll hear old-timers refer to it as the “Turnpike”, which is completely baffling if you’re from somewhere else until they let you in on the secret.
(not nearly so annoying as having “Dallas Parkway” addresses, which are actually addresses on the access roads to the Dallas North Tollway. That one stumped me for a while when I first moved here as well)
Yes, they learned their mistake when they lost the income and I-30 became free. They won’t make that mistake again. They carefully plan their maintenance and expansion so that they will always have to issue new bonds to pay for the expenses and will never reach the end.
What I really am surprised about, at least in Houston, is that the HOV lanes are now toll lanes. That is, the HOV lanes, which were built with tax-payer money by Metro, designed to encourage car-pooling by allowing congestion-free travel from the outlying population centers to Downtown are now open to single occupancy vehicles (other than daily commutes for off-duty police and city officials) if they pay the toll. That’s right, you pay taxes to build the road then get to pay a toll to drive on it.
As bad as all this sounds, however, my wife LOVES the toll roads in Houston. It doesn’t bother her at all to pay an extra $1-$4 if it keeps the commercial vehicles and crazies away. Of course, she only has been on the Hardy Toll Road, which parallels I-45, so the 18 wheelers and kids have an alternate artery to travel. The Sam Houston Tollway does not have an alternate, so it gets just as bad as the “free” freeways.
excavating (for a mind)
The Virginia Beach Expressway, from Norfolk to Va Beach (formerly state route 44, now part of I-264), was built in 1967 as a toll road that was to become a freeway after the bonds were paid off in 1997. The bonds were paid off early, though, and tolls were stopped in 1996.
Tolls on the Dulles Toll Road in Northern Virginia have been raised in the last couple of years to pay for other transit projects.
Tolls in Connecticut were eliminated on all major highways after a fiery semi accident at one of the plazas that killed a few people. Safety was the stated reason. Find the man on the grassy knoll and have him take out a few truckers.