Lawmakers push privatized toll roads, putting affordable travel out of

183 in the Dallas area is one of Texas' busiest roads. Every time I go there its packed. Probably around 500,000 vehicles per day. There are no alternate routes without going 20 miles out of the way, all in heavy traffic.

Po old Missy Sippy doesn't have any toll roads, not that I know of anyway.I Hope we never have any toll roads. Don't Mess With Missy Sippy! cuhulin

The perfect road to privatize. Guarantees them a profit and the state gives away the land worth billions.

To insiders, with no-compete clauses. It's really open theft from the taxpayers.

Bet the politicos will have free passes on the roads.

So is being elected to political office..

The great thing about toll roads is not only do state governments not have to spend gas tax revenue on them, they still get to collect gas tax revenue from drivers that use them. Sort of a double bonus...

Ed

I haden't thought of that before.Thanks for bringing that up.

But of course, the politicians and big shots will have free passes on those toll roads.They are not going reach and get any money out of their own pockets to pay any tolls. cuhulin

For most of the Toll roads you've been screwed up front when the state gave away billions in land for $1. No one could afford the tolls if the value of the land was included in them.

That does not appear to be the cae for the extortion road they are building in my area. While the state is turning over some land previously purchased for the right of way (when it was planned to be a normal "free" road), the budget also includes significant dollars for additional land purchases. And the buisness case presented looks great - to great in fact. It appears they are going to charge tolls about 50% higher than necessary to cover the actual cost of building and maintaining the raod. The tolls are not being based on covering costs, they are being based on collecting the maximum revenue. This seems criminal to me. I assume the profits are going to line the pockets of the poiticians that voted to divert money from the highway trust fund to other uses and then claimed there wasn't enough money to build needed roads...

Ed

I was talking about when they convert existing roads. If it's out in sparsely populated areas they might be able to make a go of it as long as there are no good alternatives.