Posted Jan 7, 2009, 3:25 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Granbury, Texas
Posts: 3,615
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To add to what I wrote earlier, just about all the additional freeway lanes being added to existing Texas freeways will be toll lanes, often called managed lanes. High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV) get to use them for free or for a reduced toll.
In the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth areas, that's all that's being built. TXDOT is so short of CA$H, TXDOT cancelled all the Dallas County highway projects in 2008. If it weren't for tolls, no freeway or highway construction would have proceeded.
Why should Austin be treated any different, and be immune to tolls? It may be far cheaper to build a separate toll road a few miles away than build toll lanes within the existing freeway's ROW.
In the DFW area, they''re building toll roads without toll booths. It's amazing how technology advances.
If you don't want toll roads in the future, TXDOT will need to find new tax revenues. Texas's gas tax and revenues haven't been rising with the rising costs for highway materials and new highway construction. That's why toll roads and toll lanes are being suggested in the first place. Raising the gas tax, or using a completely new tax to raise revenues is the only way to avoid using tolls.
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