Toll Roads, love them or hate them?

Here in DFW some toll roads are good and useful, Like Chisholm trail or George Bush Toll road, where the price is constant, there are multiple lanes, and they go where you need to go.

Meanwhile every other toll road (looking at you Dallas) has flex pricing, and is only made up on onramps, so when your map app tells you to get off, too bad, you're stuck going 2 to 5 miles out of your way to turn around and get in traffic on your return loop on the normal freeway.

What city has the best? Which city has the worst? Do you pay cash or just roll through and hope you don't get a bill in the mail?

We have plenty of toll roads in Oklahoma as well. There is non-stop complaining on social media from people that think they are a rip off, but don't seem to understand they don't have to use them. 

I'm perfectly fine with a pay to use system. We use them frequently since everything is so spread out here it's worth the extra cost to use a more direct route with a higher speed limit. 

I dislike the politics behind toll roads, when the state builds them and then hands them over to a private entity to shake profits from the taxpayer. 

TR7 (Forum Supporter) said:

I dislike the politics behind toll roads, when the state builds them and then hands them over to a private entity to shake profits from the taxpayer. 

But you probably also wouldn't like the state raising taxes to pay for something you may or may not use. 

z31maniac said:

TR7 (Forum Supporter) said:

I dislike the politics behind toll roads, when the state builds them and then hands them over to a private entity to shake profits from the taxpayer. 

But you probably also wouldn't like the state raising taxes to pay for something you may or may not use. 

Believe it or not I am actually OK with that. I understand that roads need to be funded and infrastructure is for the good of society. I also understand that roads need to be continually funded and maintained. Its the companies that are selected to manage toll collections that I have a problem with. 

Totally agree with TR7 here!

Feels like one of government's primary responsibilities is to ensure the welfare of its citizens, and providing viable infrastructure seems high on that list. Toll roads are one thing, but privatized toll roads (which are locally often owned by foreign companies) seems a big abrogation of that duty.

There's one toll road in Ontario and a previous Premier decided to lease it to a private corporation for 100 years for a pittance (technically the latest extensions are different toll roads and still owned by the public). The highway was only supposed to have tolls until it was paid off, that obviously was a lie. The only restriction on how high they can jack the tolls up is that the highway has to carry a minimum amount of vehicles every day or face fines, of course when traffic dropped off but tolls didn't during the pandemic all was forgiven and the fines avoided.

If you drove the length of the highway (150 km so pretty long) between 3:30-6 pm on a weekday would cost you $80 each way (the private part is almost twice as much/km as the public at this time). Don't worry if you're from out of the province or country, they'll still get you. 

I laughed after getting a bill from New York State after driving home from Watkins Glen for a few dollars.

When the toll road feels like highway robbery I'm not a fan.

I don't like private companies running them. Roads should be maintained for driving, not for profit. 

"Quarterly results aren't good, raise the tolls and cut maintenance."

In reply to z31maniac :

I'm fine with that. If other people drive on "their" bit of highway they won't fill up "my" portion. Just like I don't have kids but don't mind paying taxes for schools because I don't want to be surrounded by illiterate children.

Hate 'em. I-90 through New York is one of the roughest damn roads in the state and you have to pay for the "pleasure" of driving on it. Meanwhile I-81 is better quality, also four lanes, the same speed limit and is free to drive on. Same with whatever Pennsylvania's "Super Highway" is. It's 55mph, rougher than a cob, and you have to reduce speed to 20mph for the cameras fairly frequently. 

I drive PA/NY/CT/NJ/OH weekly, usually 1000 miles a week or so and my bill is usually $60-75 a month which I don't think is to bad for being able to drive well kept roads going to and from where I want to go. One I always forget about til I get there is the bridge on i65 into KY. 

Mixed. If the money went to the roads, I'd be happy, but it doesn't, much like the gas tax that is supposed to pay for the public roads and doesn't. 

I like the convenience factor, but I'm also annoyed by the 3% annual hike for the next 20 something years and decision to go cashless.

Sure Ez Pass is fine and all, but charging double for not having easy pass? berkeley out here.

BBased solely on western PA pay roads.

The ones I hit in California weren't bad, the tolls were reasonable for the bridges all over the Bay area, at least I thought so at the same. 

Oh, the Garden State Parkway can also take a flying leap. Whoever designed that road should be taken in a dark room and beaten.

NickD said:

Oh, the Garden State Parkway can also take a flying leap. Whoever designed that road should be taken in a dark room and beaten.

To be fair, when the GSP was built the traffic on it, the cities and towns around it, and NJ was a very very different place.

I don't like the concept of them.  They become an alternative to fixing normal roads & increasing capacity.  I think if you took the concept to its extreme, you would have to pay to go basically anywhere because normal roads would be so congested they would be unusable.

Also they are a paiiiiiinnnnn in the dick when traveling.  Especially when I fly into Austin or Dallas and half the roads are toll roads, but I don't know any better.  I don't have an EZ pass or whatever is accepted there, and there is no provision to pay with a CC.

That said, they aren't as evil as traffic lights that could be replaced by traffic circles.  Now thats a berkeleying conspiracy.

In 1956 Louisiana built a 24 mile long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain.   There was a toll in place that was to remain until the bond issue for the bridge was paid.  

This bridge has its own police force and its own managers - all state employees.

Every time they are in danger of paying off the borrowed money they invent a new set of modifications/additions so they can keep the gravy train going.   This seems to be a feature of toll road authorities.   

TR7 (Forum Supporter) said:

I dislike the politics behind toll roads, when the state builds them and then hands them over to a private entity to shake profits from the taxpayer. 

Was pleased when Ohio's governor noped that particular bill out of existence.

I'm torn.  The Ohio Turnpike was supposed to be free to use after it was paid for in the 60s.  But it is also cheaper to pay the toll than to pay for the fuel to avoid it.  The road is also generally very well maintained.

Much like the gas tax or the EV/hybrid tax, I like the concept but the execution needs help.  To be fair, we do not have any toll roads around here so my experience is only from traveling to other cities, so there may be some of the idea that gets lost in translation.  While I completely agree that tax money should be spent for things that benefit folks as a whole, even if not every taxpayer is directly using them - roads, schools, that sort of thing - I also like the idea that those that do use them should kick in a little extra.  If you told me, for example, that the gas tax was going to have to be raised by a significant amount but that 100% of that money was going to be spent on building and repairing roads while not reducing the other taxpayer money that is already earmarked for that purpose, I would likely support that.  Same thing with a toll road.  Give me a route that is better in some quantifiable way - less traffic, more lanes, higher speed limit, more direct of a route, whatever - and I'm willing to pay more for that assuming that what I'm paying is going towards the benefit that I'm getting.  Selling the rights off to a private company rubs me the wrong way a bit.  I assume that it's usually an attempt to close some immediate budget hole with an upfront payment.  I guess it's not impossible that a company would be able to collect the toll money for less than what the department of transportation would have to spend to run the program, but I'm skeptical that the operational efficiencies alone are what make it worth bidding on that contract.

The other problem I have with the administration of toll roads is the additional data gathering that happens with the ALPR systems used to toll-by-plate and/or the transponders.  If you're going to let me stop and pay cash if I want, that's fine but I'm not particularly happy with continuing to add to the database of "where have I been".  And, yes, I know that it is quite pervasive anyway.  But just because the living room is on fire doesn't mean that I think that it's okay that the kitchen is on fire too.

Loathe toll roads. Thankfully we don't have any around me. We already pay 4 different taxes for road infrastructure, adding another in the form of tolls is too much. I don't know that I've driven a toll road that was any better than a non-toll road. Like, ever. They are faster in Chicago but still E36 M3 surface. 

adam525i said:

There's one toll road in Ontario and a previous Premier decided to lease it to a private corporation for 100 years for a pittance (technically the latest extensions are different toll roads and still owned by the public). The highway was only supposed to have tolls until it was paid off, that obviously was a lie. The only restriction on how high they can jack the tolls up is that the highway has to carry a minimum amount of vehicles every day or face fines, of course when traffic dropped off but tolls didn't during the pandemic all was forgiven and the fines avoided.

If you drove the length of the highway (150 km so pretty long) between 3:30-6 pm on a weekday would cost you $80 each way (the private part is almost twice as much/km as the public at this time). Don't worry if you're from out of the province or country, they'll still get you. 

I laughed after getting a bill from New York State after driving home from Watkins Glen for a few dollars.

When the toll road feels like highway robbery I'm not a fan.

Holy cow that's expensive. The 87 mile (140 km) stretch from OKC to Tulsa is $5 each way. 

The OTA (Oklahoma Turnpike Authority) is a scam for sure, but I can say the turnpikes are in far better condition than any state/federally funded roads and highways in this state. Of course, that's just here, it may be different in your particular locale. 

In reply to adam525i :

There was a time when you could make a case for beating the traffic. But it's gotten so expensive I don't know why anybody uses it anymore. I still have my transponder, but I doubt I've used it in five or more years now

I drive from Detroit to DC occasionally, and the direct route includes 163 miles of PA TPK and about the same amount of OH TPK. It costs about $14 in OH. A couple weeks ago,  Waze told me it would cost nearly $50 to use the PA TPK, so I took an alternate route that added about 45 minutes. I will make this trade anytime I'm not in a blizzard. I did use the PA TPK on the way home because I got a late start and didn't have 45 minutes to spare.

Here's what PA thinks their road is worth:

I don't have a problem with the concept of toll roads but I do have a problem with the fact that they work differently in different parts of the country, the signage is often unclear and there's no standard way to pay for them.

APEowner said:

I don't have a problem with the concept of toll roads but I do have a problem with the fact that they work differently in different parts of the country, the signage is often unclear and there's no standard way to pay for them.

 

E-Z Pass and I-Pass are pretty universal. 

mtn said:

APEowner said:

I don't have a problem with the concept of toll roads but I do have a problem with the fact that they work differently in different parts of the country, the signage is often unclear and there's no standard way to pay for them.

 

E-Z Pass and I-Pass are pretty universal. 

19 out of 50 isnt exactly universal

With the prices some of you are paying I can see why we have different views on it.