Posted by Alex J [216.54.94.2] on Friday, December 13, 2013 at 11:18:44 :
In Reply to: Re: Coming from a bridge inspector... posted by mannyc [96.224.210.179] on Friday, December 13, 2013 at 11:09:25 :
Locally, most of our major bridge structures are going to start being tolled. Cheap tolls, even for trucks, like less than $2 for cars and even less than $4 for trucks. Super big land-sea freight hub area so they know better than to gouge the trucks and the Cities near by won't stand for that either.. However, these are private organizations that are paying into the state roadway fund to be able to manage the bridges. The bridges are being repaired by the private organization, then being tolled for the duration with controlled pricey, and then at the end of the contract the private company has to turn over the structures in better condition than they recieved them, even if that means replacing them. The local commuters who don't see the tax cost of replacing them just see it as more tolls and fees. They can't look past the fact that in order for the State to get the money to fix them they would have had to raise the gas tax again, begin a local city vehicle tax on top of your real estate tax like other areas in the state have. Additionally the money to fix what was wrong now didn't exist so some main roads were at risk of being closed all together. Simple reason is what you said above, misapproriated funds... most of it went to welfare programs which is really sad because there is ZERO return on investment there IMO. Atleast with the schools and such you have a chance of creating more tax payers, business owners, etc etc. Welfare generally only turns around the life of what... 5%, or less? Anyways, the closing of these main structures until money for repair could be sourced would have killed the local economy by snarling traffic, it would have also killed the economy of the detour areas because people would then avoid the traffic so double edged sword... the grumbling from the tolls is still outrageous though because very few understand whats going on. The real kicker is the biggest complaint comes from the Mayor of the City that recieved the largest amount of State funding aide FROM THE ROADWAY TAX over the past 20 years.
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