Lifting the tolls on holidays would result in some lost revenue, but nowhere near the $114 million a year it would cost to remove them entirely. And thousands of us would be grateful for the opportunity to get to our holiday destinations and back in a reasonable amount of time.
Please share widely!
Seems vaguely familiar … can’t … quite … recall …
Waving people through tolls just increases traffic. The real problem is volume. It would be too expensive to re-engineer highway interchanges or toll plaza’a just for a handful of holidays. Sorry
I don’t even own a car, but my wife and I finally got Fastlane solely for the holidays, when we rent a car and don’t want to wait to pay tolls.
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The MA system sucks.
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1. They make you pay like $30 for the thing. For occasional users, that’s a really bad deal. Why so expensive? Make the thing $5 or $10. Better yet, make it “free” and charge users $50 for not returning the thing when they cancel their membership. The difference in charge is irrelevant for everyday users, but pretty significant for those of us who only use it rarely.
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2. Make it discount/free for FastLane users only on holidays. Advertise this fact in October and encourage folks to sign up in time for Thanksgiving.
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3. Work with rental car agencies to get them to put FastLane in all of their cars, so that renters have it in the car when they pick it up. Of course the rental car agency would pass the costs on to the users, but that’s reasonable enough.
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The problem isn’t the volume of traffic — its that around the holidays, you have both high volume and a lower percentage of cars with FastPass. The most efficient (note I didn’t write fair, smart, or politically savvy) ways to reduce those lines are:
1. Eliminate tolls altogether on that day
2. Increase FastLane usage on that day
3. Increase the cost of driving (higher tolls, higher gas prices, etc) so that fewer people drive altogether
4. Improve driving alternatives, be it train, bus, airplane, whatever — fewer people will drive that way
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The parent suggests (1). I suggest (2), while always happy to point out that doing (3) and (4) are probably in our long term interest, particularly if they are implemented together.
Even with a fast lane, you can be bottled up on the Pike or I-84 for miles before you approach the toll plaza. Okay, so when you start to see daylight in the Fast Lane only lane, you can move on through. It’s just a long and painful process to get there.
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It makes no sense to waste money just to collect the tolls. The gas tax is far more efficient. We should pull down the tolls, lower the T fare, and raise gas taxes to the level necessary to fund our transportation needs.
I am honestly unable to understand why everyone doesn’t agree with me that the tolls are an inexusably inefficient and regressive way for government to raise money.
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Any and all revenue lost by taking them down (and some revenue would be gained) could easily be made up for with a few cents increase in the gas tax. This simple solution would seemingly solve the revenue problem and balance the environmental impact (incentive for more cars to use the now-free Pike balanced with disincentive to use gas plus less idiling cars at every plaza).
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Other than those looking to get “credit” for saving the aproximately 500 over-paid toll taking jobs, I’m confused as to why anyone thinks keeping the tolls are a good idea.
I’m not so sure that tolls are as regressive as you claim they are. After all, the poorest don’t drive the highways at all. The toll payers tend to be suburbanites. It’s true that tolls hit middle class taxpayers harder than upper class taxpayers, but the claim of regressive doesn’t quite sit right with me across the board.
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As for tolls vs. gas tax, consider: * air pollution isn’t perfectly correlated with MPG * noise pollution isn’t perfectly correlated with MPG * sprawl is certainly not correlated with MPG at all * While not so true on the Pike, on some toll roads there are plenty of folks buying their gas out of state (where it’s cheaper, or because they’re cutting through). NJians don’t buy their gas in NY, and folks driving through Delaware on 95 don’t stop for gas either. * Increasing the gas tax would seem to be a political non-starter, even if it did mean eliminating the tolls. Not only do people hate gas tax, but those who don’t pay the tolls now would be furious that their operational costs are going up to “subsidize” those who use the toll roads now. * Toll roads can be used to help alleviate bottlenecks by encouraging more price conscious drivers to take a different route. This is most relevant for bridges and tunnels. * Toll roads can help encourage use of mass transit (bus/subway/train) by making the cost of driving a bit higher, particularly for solo-riders. * Toll roads can be used creatively to foster improved behavior, such as: – car poolers pay less/nothing – high mpg cars pay less/nothing – users at off-peak hours pay less/nothing
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So, I’m not arguing that the tolls on the Mass Pike are more appropriate than raising the gas tax across the whole state, but I do think that tolls can be used more effectively than a gas tax (and than nothing at all) to accomplish certain objectives.
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That it creates jobs is a side effect of good governing, and shouldn’t be used as an excuse to keep the system in place. I’m not saying that the collectors should be given 2 weeks notice and told to take a hike — we should take care of our state employees, perhaps especially the ones being laid off — but keeping a system in place because of the employees is not good governing.
Though I’m not convinced by all of your arguments, I definitely appreciate your responding.
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Your bottleneck/off-hours/low mpg cars/car pool line of argument is interesting and deserves more thought. Just wish we had more creative thinkers at the Authority.
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And that we had no Authority.