Why You’ll Love Paying for Roads That Used to Be Free

[jeffrey]

To end the scourge of traffic congestion, Julius Caesar banned most carts from the streets of Rome during daylight hours. It didn’t work — traffic jams just shifted to dusk. Two thousand years later, we have put a man on the moon and developed garments infinitely more practical than the toga, but we seem little nearer to solving the congestion problem.

If you live in a city, particularly a large one, you probably need little convincing that traffic congestion is frustrating and wasteful. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, the average American urban traveler lost 38 hours, nearly one full work week, to congestion in 2005. And congestion is getting worse, not better; urban travelers in 1982 were delayed only 14 hours that year.

Americans want action, but unfortunately there aren’t too many great ideas about what that action might be. As Anthony Downs’s excellent book Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping With Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion chronicles, most of the proposed solutions are too difficult to implement, won’t work, or both...

Why You’ll Love Paying for Roads That Used to Be Free: A Guest Post - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

[PrincessPerky]

Huh..

I am still confused as to how the tolling works (wouldn't stopping to pay the toll slow you down?

But on the surface, I actually am not opposed to toll roads...I really don't see roads as a birthright.

I would however object to leaving the mass transit in favor of tolling..both would make more sense to me. (but then I played Simcity for eons, you could always cure congestion with enough mass transit)

[simpletron]

Originally Posted by PrincessPerky

Huh..

I am still confused as to how the tolling works (wouldn't stopping to pay the toll slow you down?

have you seen ID cards that you just wave over a pad on the wall to get give you access to building? the system works on the same technology. you get a the ID card, which stores your account information and is mounted in the car. as you drive though the toll booth, a "giant pad" on ceiling reads your ID card's account information and then bills the account. there was a traffic light that signals how the transaction went: green-everything good; yellow-good, but low on funds; red-no funds or no card. if you got red, you'll get a ticket in the mail with photographs. all i had to do was slow down to 35 mph from 55 mph and maintain sufficient funds using a website.

[PrincessPerky]

Oh, luddite here, only paid tolls with coin....

Thanks for info.

[SavingCash]

Originally Posted by PrincessPerky

Huh..

I am still confused as to how the tolling works (wouldn't stopping to pay the toll slow you down?

But on the surface, I actually am not opposed to toll roads...I really don't see roads as a birthright.

I would however object to leaving the mass transit in favor of tolling..both would make more sense to me. (but then I played Simcity for eons, you could always cure congestion with enough mass transit)

From the article:

"Hi-tech transponders and antenna arrays make waiting at toll booths a thing of the past. "

[PrincessPerky]

part two is up if interested:

freakonomics