Toll roads
Hello, we are first time RV'ers doing a long distance trip to the coast of Maine from Wisconsin. We have been out locally in our 38ft. class A RV but never cross country. Our question concerns the Tol...
Forum Discussion
ohhell10339 wrote:
A great example would be toll bridges. The original justification for charging tolls was to pay for the cost of constructing them. But decades after tolls repaid that cost, the tolls still exist--and are far higher than when the bridges were built.
Bridges require maintenance. Some bigger steel/suspension ones employ one or more paint crews year around. And increased traffic may require upgrades. A while back I looked at tolls on a Maryland bridge. Current tolls are higher than originally, but compared to the cost of gas lower. In Washington state bridge tolls have been removed when the construction bonds were paid off. In a couple of cases they have been reintroduced to pay for expansions or replacements.
In British Columbia, tolls were removed from the Coquihalla Hwy after about 11 years. And just this past year tolls on a couple of Vancouver area bridges were removed by the new NDP government.
Are there documented cases where bridge or road tolls in excess of operating costs are diverted to general revenue? Especially cases where that is contrary to the toll entities charter?
Gas taxes, especially the federal ones, haven't kept pace with inflation. So increasingly we'll see more 'use' fees to pay for infrastructure.
