Tolls are the coming thing. Politicians like the idea of them, as does the transportation fraternity. The public does not. It will be persuaded to accept tolls only when they provide an immediate benefit which they can, if done right.
The case for tolls was made at a recent Discovery Institute conference in Seattle. It boils down to two things. Tolls can pay for more bridges and roads, and tolls can help get the most out of the bridges and roads we have....In the not-too-distant future, we might envision rush-hour tolls on Interstate 5, with the money going to maintenance and improvement of the region's major north-south freeway. The tolls could be set at a level so that traffic speed could be increased to 50 mph, the speed a freeway will move the most cars per hour.
If that were done, one could imagine one commentator saying that the chance to drive on a free-flowing I-5 at 4:30 in the afternoon was a new thing, and worth paying for, and another commentator saying that it was really quite wonderful that more people were riding the bus. Read More ›