Obama Highway Plan Paves Way For New Tolls Nationwide
A little-noted provision of President Obama’s highway funding proposal would lift the federal prohibition against states imposing new tolls on existing interstate highways.
The GROW AMERICA Act would eliminate restrictions held in place since the creation of the Federal Interstate System, according to a summary of the plan’s provisions, allowing states that receive permission from the Secretary of Transportation to toll existing Interstate highways “in order to make improvements or to manage congestion.”
Since its creation in 1956, interstates have been funded primarily through fuel taxes, with tolls banned on all sections of highway built after that date, according to The Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates (ATFI). The only exception is a 1998 program available to three states, none of which have taken advantage of it to date.
(RELATED: Obama Proposal Would Almost Double Federal Highway Spending)
The exact criteria by which the Secretary would evaluate such requests will not be known until they are published for public comment in the Federal Register, but that has not stopped organizations on both sides of the issue from opining.
“Tolling interstate lanes which drivers now freely access is an inefficient financing mechanism that is the worst possible approach to raising transportation revenue,” ATFI spokesman Julian Walker said Monday in a press release, noting that “the idea has already been rejected by lawmakers, the public, and community leaders in the few states with a federal exception to the tolling prohibition.”
Walker argues that tolls not only “divert heavy highway traffic onto secondary streets,” leading to higher road maintenance costs, but also “endanger public safety when rescue workers are delayed in responding to emergencies.” (RELATED: Repatriation Funding Won’t Fix Highway Funding Shortfall, Critics Say)
The free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, on the other hand, says in a blog post that although Congress is unlikely to pass the GROW AMERICA Act, the tolling provision is one of two “very smart elements that Congress should attach to their own reauthorization package.”
“Contrary to popular belief, the states, not the federal government, own and operate the Interstate Highway System,” CEI notes, adding that because of this local dynamic, “tolling offers a number of advantages over fuel tax or non-user funding.”
Most importantly, according to CEI, no federal funds can be used for maintenance on any tolled segments of the Interstate, ensuring that those costs are borne exclusively by those who benefit from using the roads.
(RELATED: Mike Lee Would Send Highway Funds to the States)
Walker, however, counters that this would not necessarily be the case under the Obama plan, which would “let states redirect toll revenues to completely unrelated projects, abusing public trust and exploiting highway drivers with a tax on interstates to pay for trolleys, public transit, and unspecified environmental projects, all without solving the transportation funding problem.”
The GROW AMERICA Act would eliminate restrictions held in place since the creation of the Federal Interstate System, according to a summary of the plan’s provisions, allowing states that receive permission from the Secretary of Transportation to toll existing Interstate highways “in order to make improvements or to manage congestion.”
Since its creation in 1956, interstates have been funded primarily through fuel taxes, with tolls banned on all sections of highway built after that date, according to The Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates (ATFI). The only exception is a 1998 program available to three states, none of which have taken advantage of it to date.
(RELATED: Obama Proposal Would Almost Double Federal Highway Spending)
The exact criteria by which the Secretary would evaluate such requests will not be known until they are published for public comment in the Federal Register, but that has not stopped organizations on both sides of the issue from opining.
Walker argues that tolls not only “divert heavy highway traffic onto secondary streets,” leading to higher road maintenance costs, but also “endanger public safety when rescue workers are delayed in responding to emergencies.” (RELATED: Repatriation Funding Won’t Fix Highway Funding Shortfall, Critics Say)
The free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, on the other hand, says in a blog post that although Congress is unlikely to pass the GROW AMERICA Act, the tolling provision is one of two “very smart elements that Congress should attach to their own reauthorization package.”
“Contrary to popular belief, the states, not the federal government, own and operate the Interstate Highway System,” CEI notes, adding that because of this local dynamic, “tolling offers a number of advantages over fuel tax or non-user funding.”
Most importantly, according to CEI, no federal funds can be used for maintenance on any tolled segments of the Interstate, ensuring that those costs are borne exclusively by those who benefit from using the roads.
(RELATED: Mike Lee Would Send Highway Funds to the States)
Walker, however, counters that this would not necessarily be the case under the Obama plan, which would “let states redirect toll revenues to completely unrelated projects, abusing public trust and exploiting highway drivers with a tax on interstates to pay for trolleys, public transit, and unspecified environmental projects, all without solving the transportation funding problem.”
1 comment:
Here's the deal.
People complain and comply at the same time.
Compliance is agreement. Period.
Tolls are upon vehicles operated in commerce, vehicles are registered to be in commerce, and operated by people licensed to operate them, drivers.
So we need a registered vehicle in commerce with a driver operating it.
Toll roads are for those people.
Unfortunately, the super majority of the people living on this great land are identified as that group.
There are few who own their property without lien or encumbrance and when they do, they fear not registering it with the state, giving the state continued interest in the property paid for. In addition, even with a driver's license, they fear expressing when they are operating in commerce and when they are in their personal capacity only having incidental use of the highway to take care of personal things, like food, clothing, shelter, health, entertainment, etc.
Without the voices expressing what they do and don't do, the system wraps itself around you as doing what the system regulates. Commerce.
So to complain, while making payments on your car means it belongs to someone else and they want the state to keep interest in the property, so it must stay registered; and to complain while accepting the contracts on the side of the road that you are in commerce and owe a fee for violating some commercial rule and not doing anything to learn how to protect your right to travel, well if they charge you for the things you do that are not in commerce, you helped them.
There are people that say nothing will happen while they do nothing, and some that wait for something to happen while they watch everyone else stick their neck out and some who are doing things and the system keeps adjusting to deal with them, whereas the ones doing nothing see the control getting tighter the ones who are doing things see the system changing.
The reason to do something is to change the system, not sit on your hands and read another complaint.
I told a woman, what I do is not easy, it's difficult, people around me don't comprehend, why not make it easy and just 'do what they say'?
Yes, yes, everyone does what they say and it's gotten a lot easier, right? Toll roads, Patriot Act, Homeland Security, yeah it's a lot easier cause you just go along to get along.
No one has to fight, they just need to learn. Learning is not what people want to do, they want to go to work and come home and relax and be entertained. They don't want to sift through hours of recorded conference calls, or dig through pages up on pages on a website for remedy, if they hit a snag, pay someone to fix it for them.
Well this time, you are either ready to mature and govern yourself or stay with the fold from womb to tomb.
The time will come, the peaceful resistors will have a public record of their resistance, and the way will be made for them to live free and self govern, and those who huddle with the masses may become angry as they are re-educated and told they could have had the same if they put more effort into the quality of life they wanted and the future they wanted for their self.
You either want it or you don't, and you don't have to go to war to get it, you just resist what you don't want and express consent for the things you do want.
It was always your decision.
You just didn't make it, waiting on a god somewhere to show you the way.
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