The toll roads SH 45 and I30 that run through Austin are not attracting the revenue or volume of users they anticipated. The privately managed roads cost taxpayers an unnecessary amount of money and can be easily avoided if our lawmakers would conform to the population growth like cities such as San Antonio. The city of San Antonio conformed to their population growth and were intelligent when it came to building the major free highways known as I30 and 410. Austin to this day doesn’t care to consider the continuous population growth, and would rather make it an inconvenience by charging existing residents for their lack of planning.
Texas residents should not have to pay in order to access a road, and especially the only major highway in Austin. I myself boycott the toll road because their system is antiquated, and they actually wanted to charge me for sending a new Toll Tag when all they needed to do was add the existing Toll Tag number to my account. Texans shouldn’t have to pay for any road or major highway, that’s what taxes are for, and I would much rather pay a little more in taxes than having to provide a credit card or bank account for the private sectors to drain from.
3 comments:
Adela Moreno, the author of the "Driving is not always Priceless" shows her disgust with unnecessarily expensive roads and the fact that lawmakers are considering changing some of the major freeways and interstate highways into toll roads. I stand by her in saying that this unsettling. The private owners of the toll roads want money, and the government doesn't want to spend money to build new ones so for the time being we are stuck paying tolls or stuck in traffic for hours.
With the population of Austin growing at an exponential rate, something needs to be done about the roads because the road system is not working right now. Just ask anyone in Austin, traffic is AWFUL. Cities with larger populations than Austin have less traffic because the cities have met the population's needs with roads to travel freely on. Charging people to drive on highways that have been free for a while will just cause more congestion and traffic on city streets and other freeways and highways that have enough traffic as is. It will not take care of the problem at hand.
I do believe that toll roads are a good idea in some instances, because they are very open and you can bypass a lot of traffic, but this openness means the roads aren't being utilized to their full potential. If these roads were free more people could drive on the former toll roads and lessen the traffic on other highways. Most people avoid toll roads, such as Moreno, and are fed up with having to pay for something that we already pay for in our taxes. Now though I agree with Moreno, she doesn't give much of an alternative to the issue other than "I would much rather pay a little more in taxes". I feel like if taxes went up people would be much more outraged than if they had to pay a few cents to drive on a road.
The city of Austin needs to accept that it is indeed growing and start building more roads to keep up with the population. Though it may take a years to accomplish and will require a lot of money it is way past time for Austin to get better roads and shut down toll roads turning them into free highways.
In response to Adela Moreno blog posting on July 25, 2014. titled " Driving is not always priceless" found her blog titled "Forgotten Alamo" i must respectively disagree with her opinion that paying of toll roads by taxpayers should be free in the sense that it is a choice to decide whether or not to pay for toll roads. It is not a must that everybody will have to pay for toll roads, in other words those who decides to drive through toll roads should be able to pay for it as well. Since there is always alternatives to toll road, i think it is avoidable other than saying it should be free. For example, i always drive through the alternative roads to toll road, as a matter fact i set my GPS to avoid toll roads and i don't have to worry about paying for toll roads. However someone who feels they must drive through toll roads should be able to pay for it as well.
Also the money charged in toll road are very cheap and affordable by people who use those toll roads when they compare it to the cost of gas, those who use it might prefer to use toll road than to drive extra mile consuming their gas. Also most people believe that using toll roads enables them to meet up an appointment when in a hurry. Knowing this benefits make me believe it is worth paying for by those who use it. Rate of toll roads for the current year can be viewed in the following website http://www.mobilityauthority.com/projects/183a.php.
Texas should have to pay for toll roads if they use it, those money gotten from toll roads might be useful to the government in providing certain service that we all might enjoy. Maintaining the roads is the most important thing and not the issue of paying of for toll roads. Therefore those who use toll roads should pay for it regardless of the location of the toll roads.
Adela Moreno writes about the issue of toll roads in Texas in her article “Driving is not always Priceless” which is found on her blog, Forgotten Alamo. In her article, Adela talks about her concern with lawmaker’s possible decision to make I-35 a toll road. I agree with Adela that we don’t need toll roads in Texas and that our tax money should pay for roads that should be free for anyone to access.
Freeing up the toll roads would greatly help the congestion on non toll highways in Austin and many other high traffic cities. Currently, the toll roads are underused as a result of citizens not wanting to pay extra. To me, this just looks like wasted roads. Austin has a huge traffic problem, but city officials have turned the other cheek. Making toll roads free would help the problem tremendously in my opinion.
I thought Adela had some good points about how taxes should pay for our roads, but she didn’t really back anything up with data or other articles. Overall, her article was good and got me thinking about how the toll roads in the Austin area affect the horrible traffic we have here.
Post a Comment