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I won't be paying any tolls. There is nothing in that area that I can't find where I live now.
I already pay.
Its called the gas tax.
Keep up the genius takes
If you don't want to pay extra. You should have to pay a heavy load fee every day anyway. Damn, toss in a salad every now and then.
I won't be paying any tolls. There is nothing in that area that I can't find where I live now.
thequattro thread is the troll forum.
exactly, just like in houston and dallas... bumper to bumper on the toll roads!
http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news...rticle=3003305
Toll Construction Could Begin by May
Plans to 'accelerate' construction
By Jim Forsyth
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Now that the final hurdle for a massive toll road project in Bexar County has been approved, officials say the dirt could be turned on the first toll roads, on US 281 between Sonterra Road and Marshall Road, by next May, 1200 WOAI news reports.
"We're going to accelerate this project as quickly as we can,” said Bill Thornton, the head of the Regional Mobility Authority, which will have the responsibility for arranging the financing to build what is called the ‘starter system of toll roads,’ a $1.3 billion dollar project of toll lanes on US 281 and Loop 1604 that was approved Monday night by the Metropolitan Planning Organization.
“We know that it takes a long time to build the roads out, so let’s get started as quickly as possible,” Thornton said.
When the first toll lanes on US 281 open in 2011, the tolls will be 17 cents a mile for passenger cars and pickups. That toll rate will escalate at 2.75% a year through 2016, and at 3% a year beyond 2017. There are no provisions to cut the tolls or eliminate them altogether, even after the roads are paid for.
Emergency first responders would not have to pay tolls, and Via Metro Transit would be free to a ‘limit per year’ to be established by the RMA. Still to be determined, whether school busses will pay tolls.
Anti toll groups, which drowned out toll supporters at the contentious MPO meeting, say they will not stop their fight. Terri Hall of the anti toll group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, pointed out that a lawsuit challenging the vote is still pending in federal court.
“We’re going to use every means possible to challenge this toll road,” she said.
But Thornton said if legal challenges delay the project, everybody loses.
“I will tell you if it delays the project, all of the citizens of San Antonio can look at 281 and 410 by the Airport and they ask ‘why did it take so long to build that?’ And the answer is, delays. Delays don’t benefit anybody. We plan to move along as quickly as possible.”
Hall and anti toll attorney David Van Os said they also plan to challenge the cons utionality of the MPO itself. Seven of the 12 votes in favor of toll roads were cast by non elected MPO members, including the director of the San Antonio Airport, the Infrastructure Services Director for Bexar County and, amazingly, two employees of the Texas Department of Transportation.
“TexDOT is actually voting in favor of putting more money in their coffers,” Hall said.
One big question concerns what percentage of the driving public will opt for toll roads over the access roads, which will remain free, although increasingly congested. Officials say no improvements will be made to free lanes of 281 or 1604 over and above ‘safety improvements.’
RMA Director Terry Brechtel at first said no more than 10% of motorists would opt for the toll lanes, but under intense questioning from State Senator Carlos Uresti, who voted against the toll plan, she revised that to 40% right away, and 75% after ten years, as San Antonians get more used to driving on toll roads.
Thornton agreed.
“There’s a saying, that no one likes a toll road until they get one, and then they love it. I think people will really warm to toll roads.”
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A saying? Where is that saying from? I've never heard it.
Sure enough...they plan to up 281 to try and force people to pay the toll.
Also, it's obvious that Terry Brechtel doesn't have a clue as to how many people will use the toll roads. Makes me wonder what kind of studies, if any were done...and if so, what they actually said.
And this is just the beginning.
i can't lika da tolls.
The bigger surprise was that you actually felt you needed to ask...
Exactly!! Except the majority of our "gas taxes" go to the General Fund so our good federal government can waste them on everything EXCEPT building/maintaining roads. For those that don't mind paying tolls, there should be a voluntary box on the IRS tax form that allows them to pay an additional $750.00 in taxes that would go to building toll roads. I bet you wouldn't see to many of those boxes checked.I already pay.
Its called the gas tax.
Keep up the genius takes
In the meeting last night, it was announced that there are plans to toll Loop 1604 from IH-10 to Hwy 90. WTF?? Loop 1604 is alrady a freeway from IH-10 to 2 miles south of Bandera.
So they want to take an existing freeway already paid for and turn it into a toll road that a private managemt company will make a ton of money from? Damn I am in the wrong business.
I don't really give a either way. I never travel up that way.
Dogs on skateboards are funny.
But the people who live over here are all rich.
I use the toll road to get to work everyday. They A. Save me 30 mins on my drive to work. B. Save me on gas. The Toll roads in Houston are convenient as well. Its a great second option to have.
Gee only $520.00 a year. What, about one weeks salary to
drive on a road you help to subsidize to build.
I actually did misread the thread le at first.
Are you ever correct travis2. Just the beginning.
But the movers and shakers are trying to tell us how we
are now in the bigtime, like other bigtime cities.....
Me either.
It's a repeat of the "let's start the Lottery to help education" debacle.
you should figure what some use on gas if they don't use the toll roads.
If we had lawmakers who would (a) increase the state gas tax which has not been adjusted for over a decade now, and (b) actually send all that money to TxDOT, the majority of this toll road crap would not be necessary. Gas price has tripled, but the per gallon tax hasn't changed ...
The current bunch of TxDOT leadership are all Rick Perry cronies who have their hands in the pockets of the toll road lobby. Getting rid of them would help, too.
I would support a gas tax.
I would support a higher inspection sticker fee.
I would support a higher sales tax.
I will not ever support a toll road (tax) system.
Answer the following questions for yourselves:
Why not use the system of taxing the people already in place to get the needed funds?
Why should people pay for the creation and maintenance of a redundant system of taxing them when its not needed?
Why build infrastructure that can not be utilized by 100% of the people?
Who truly benefits from toll roads?
Toll roads would never be needed if the people in charge could manage the needs of the people correctly. "Let them eat cake."
As I said in a different thread, TxDot requires (much like most government agencies) that complaints in regards to a developing project be sent via postmail in the form of a written complaint. The amount of complaints needs to be a certain percentage of the estimated vehicles on the road on any given day.
TxDot received less then 100 complaints.
All you folks against, you had your chance and you chose to about it on spurstalk.com rather then doing something constructive to have your voice heard.
Too late.........and far, far too little.
Bring on the roads.
Good news too. Since the job got shut down initially, costs have gone up 20%, so that was a sweet move by the anti-toll party.
Oh, and what more is that the job is going to have to be re-bid, which means your local construction company (Zachry), might not get it this time and will bring in their own labor from other areas.
Finally, if they would have let it be built the first time (by the way, nothing has changed in the environmental scope of work), it would be done by now, and the folks that are so miserable up and down 281 would have nice, pretty overpasses to drive on that wouldn't be tolled yet because they wanted to wait for the rest of 281 as well as 1604 to be complete...........but those plans have changed.
Sweet, anti-toll party, that was sweet indeed.
Well, that nose wasn't really needed now, was it?
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