Long Island Expressway Toll !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Glenn Redo]

:new_321: :new_321: Well guys Tom Suozzi, our potential govenor, is trying to put forth a bill that will make the Long Island Expressway a toll road. It is his belief that that this will relieve congestion during high traffic periods (ALL DAY) and will force more people to take public transportation. I believe we will just be paying to park.

 

[Fred]

It doesn't take two guesses to figure out what party he is in. :icon_smile: As Reagan once mocked, "If it moves, tax it."

I think it will take cars off the expressway, onto the access roads and side streets. It won't take any more time to go around the toll, but it will be cheaper.

 

[Big ole Boy]

Taxing the rat race

Rat Race people get taxed in cold climates

Our southern heritage in the south allows us the advantage of being behind the tax curve for albeit a season.

 

[The Warrior Monk]

This is an interesting contrast to the recent article in Newsday about how housing aid might be extended to the middle class because of affordability issues.

Instead of lower taxes in the highest taxed state in the country to make it affordable to live here...they figure out more ways to tax and spend.

 

[Hal Mann]

Surprise!

It doesn't take two guesses to figure out what party he is in. :icon_smile: As Reagan once mocked, "If it moves, tax it."

Actually Mr. Suozzi is a Democrat. It is a shocking proposal, but he is desperately far behind his competition.

On the basic point, I think you are right. If it happened, it would just clog up the surrounding secondary roads.

 

[Steve Owen]

The Libertarian viewpoint

The L's seem to favor toll roads. Their take, as I understand it is that the people actually using the road are the ones paying for it. Additionally, tolls could be changed to charge more for using the road during peak periods. I could probably go along with that if it was not for observation of the way governments mess it up in states where tolls are used.

Invariably, such states have poorer, public, non-toll highway systems... yet, they tend to have higher than average gas taxes. Oklahoma is a prime example.

My other objection is that toll roads are inefficient. Because of the toll, someone has to collect. That is a much less efficient taxation system.

However, the second objection would largely go away if modern technology could somehow be brought to bear... you would just drive as you will and at the end of the month you'd get a bill for all the toll roads you drove on.

But, that would not make the first objection go away. What really happens in the current system is that you pay twice when you drive on a toll road. First, you pay a gas tax at the pump, then you have to pay again to drive on the road. I might favor toll roads. But, only if some way was in place to reimburse the tax for the gasoline consumed on the toll road.

 

[Hal Mann]

The Libertarians seem to favor toll roads. Their take, as I understand it is that the people actually using the road are the ones paying for it. Additionally, tolls could be changed to charge more for using the road during peak periods. I could probably go along with that if it was not for observation of the way governments mess it up in states where tolls are used.

Invariably, such states have poorer, public, non-toll highway systems... yet, they tend to have higher than average gas taxes. Oklahoma is a prime example.

My other objection is that toll roads are inefficient. Because of the toll, someone has to collect. That is a much less efficient taxation system.

However, the second objection would largely go away if modern technology could somehow be brought to bear... you would just drive as you will and at the end of the month you'd get a bill for all the toll roads you drove on.

Though I agree with a lot of this, I must point out that it's not always that way. The New Jersey Turnpike, a toll road, is one of the best managed, best maintained roads in America. Of course, it suffers from periods of heavy traffic, but it really is well maintained.

And, with the creation of EZPass (and other similar automated toll systems), technology has caught up to the point that toll-taking is far more efficient than in the past. One can now whiz past unmanned EZPass toll booths at 60 mph (in some places - it's certainly not universal at this point). When zipping down the EZPass lane, I certainly get a kick passing by the long lines of cars piled up waiting to pay cash tolls. Hey, I always wave to them.

 

[Fred]

Actually Mr. Suozzi is a Democrat

Hal, that's what I meant.

I recall reading about the creation of the LIE. I think the book was called Power Broker, a bio of Robert Moses. Moses was one of those rare political figures. After they die, the legislatures pass rules to keep anyone else from getting into a similar position. (His public words agency had funding ndependet of legislative "oversight"). The orignal LIE plans called for a wider corridor that would have included train lines.