General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGOP Would Support Turning Interstate Highways Into Toll Road System.
Bush supported the idea of making the national interstate highway system into toll roads. Rather than raise taxes to pay for road repairs the GOP would support privatizing the entire system letting whatever multinational corporation buy rights and run it. They believe that ALL the commons should be private or corporate owned and that government has no place in the commons.
With the GOP in power such privatization would become a reality. Also it is part of their secret agenda to privatize all our security, police and fire fighting systems letting corporations runs them. Some municipalities in Great Britain have already turned their security to corporate operation under conservative government.
So a trip from NY to LA under private toll roads would be rather costly. Such a system would favor only those people who can pay.
AxionExcel
(755 posts)malaise
(269,186 posts)as toll roads so the vast majority of the population can't afford to use them.
They also agreed not to upgrade main thoroughfares and the foreign owners are allowed to increase the rates with every devaluation of the currency. French and Chinese companies now own our highways.
TheFarseer
(9,326 posts)they want to sell off our national assets and piss it away on tax cuts for people that don't need a tax cut. Even worse, a bunch of people on DU support this too. I assume they don't live near interstates. Even worse, some Democrats support this kind of stuff. Rahm Emanuel selling off the parking meters in Chicago is not so different than selling the interstate. This cannot be tolerated. There's nothing keeping the interstate from ultimately ending up in the hands of a foreign company or even a foreign government and what kind of country do you have when you have to pay tribute to a foreign government to travel within your own borders! In 1805, we declared to the Barbary Pirates, "Millions for Defense but not one cent for tribute" and now that has become "Millions for tribute but not one cent to fix the roads." It's just unbelievable.
Ace Rothstein
(3,184 posts)Daley also sold the Chicago Skyway. I think that has gone from a $2 toll to $4.50 in 10 yeas.
TheFarseer
(9,326 posts)The Chicago Reader claims when Emanuel took over, he worked against the city's efforts to get out of the deal even while telling the press he wanted the city to get out of the deal. Weird stuff.
Ace Rothstein
(3,184 posts)The revenue that the city threw away will end up being multiples of what they received for the deal.
cloudbase
(5,525 posts)March 11, 2016
A toll road in Texas declared bankruptcy last week, raising concern about tollings long-term viability. The 41-mile State Highway 130 project was the Lone Star States first public private partnership tolling deal, which served as a symbol of the Texas Department of Transportations overall plan to add toll booths to every freeway. It flopped.
HeiressofBickworth
(2,682 posts)is that the new corporate owner will take the profits and neglect maintenance. After a number of years, when the highways become nearly impassable and profits dry up, they will fold up their tents and slither away, leaving the US with no resources to repair and maintain the highways. The US will be left with the ultimate problem of having to completely reconstruct a national highway system. There is absolutely no good to come of privatizing highways.
djean111
(14,255 posts)And whatever schools are left. basically, as I understand it, anything that can be privatized will be privatized if at all possible, if there is a private profit to be made.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Tolls are good for the environment, can be used to subsidize public transport, and allow those actually using the highways to pay to maintain and improve them.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)pretty right-wing stuff there.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)And you're already paying once to maintain them through fuel taxes.
alarimer
(16,245 posts)Often foreign corporations. Not that location matters much to multi-nationals.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I don't think privatizing the entire system (implicit premise in OP) is the same in either process or application as in countries like France and Norway (your Norwegian allegation seems exceptionally lacking in relevant context if contrasted to private development).
You may want to review your source material to better understand the precise and relevant differences between the particular European governments application of toll systems versus that of private contractors.
dembotoz
(16,844 posts)HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts). . . along with arming citizens and saying "that's your law enforcement". You know, SENSIBLE stuff!
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The Northeast which are mostly blue states, toll roads are still fairly rare down here in Dixie.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Glassunion
(10,201 posts)We seem to have a lot but no more than other regions that have toll roads.
From north of the original Mason - Dixon line, number of active toll roads
PA: 6
DE: 2
NJ: 3
NY: 3
CT: 0
RI: 0
MA: 1
VT: 0
NH: 3
ME: 1
South of the original Mason - Dixon line, number of active toll roads
AL: 4
FL: 24
GA: 1
KY: 0
LA: 0
MD: 1
MS: 0
NC: 1
SC: 2
TN: 0
VA: 9
WV: 1
If you add OK and TX there are 36 more toll roads.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)and absorbing sunlight.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Most of the Dallas outer loop is a toll road, named the George Bush (after poppa Bush).
Pretty much all new controlled access roads I see being built in Texas are toll roads. So their looneytarian vision is already happening. Soon there will be a coin slot at every stoplight.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)a commons dating back to New Haven's founding in the 17th century (the Green is smack dab in the middle of New Haven) and he was amazed that such a thing existed, for the pleasure and gentle use of walkers, cyclists and whoever wants to sit on a park bench on their lunch hour.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)In classic New England fashion, the Green is owned by a shadowy, secretive group called "the Proprietors". I always thought that would make a nice movie treatment.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Under our last mayor, the city sold a street to Yale and i don't know how that could even happen.
One_Life_To_Give
(6,036 posts)Not exactly a new idea here. The US has been there, done that, got the T-Shirt. IT also made for a stable currency as Turnpike bonds were often used to transact buisiness. That would save us from having to print and coin US currency. Better yet Uncle Sam could put a toll booth on the Mississipi and other navigable waters. That would give us loads to spend on things like defence. So we can figure out how to get a 60ton M1A1 and it's support equipment to travel down a private turnpike optimized to carry 1.5ton commuter vehicles.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)I'm bewildered that they get to claim to be the party against raising taxes.
louis-t
(23,297 posts)Those are "user fees" not taxes.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)....with taxpayer monies, while returning as little as possible. The same thing happened with privatization of electric grids in some states; rates went through the roof, and blackouts still happened.
2naSalit
(86,802 posts)Toll roads, what a crock!
A comprehensive plan to address safety and capacity issues on the Connecticut Turnpike did not progress beyond the initial planning stages until the collapse of the Mianus River Bridge on June 28, 1983.[6] Following the collapse, governor William A. O'Neill initiated an $8 billion program to rehabilitate Connecticut's highways. Included in this program was the inspection and repair of the Turnpike's nearly 300 bridges and overpasses. Furthermore, Governor O'Neill directed the Connecticut Department of Transportation to develop a viable plan for addressing safety and congestion on the state's roads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Turnpike#Bridge_collapse_jumpstarts_turnpike_upgrades
One of my coworkers was in one of those semis...
The bridge had a 100-foot (30.5 m) section of its deck of its northbound span collapse on June 28, 1983. Three people were killed when two cars and two tractor-trailers [1] fell with the bridge into the Mianus River 70 feet (21.3 m) below; three were seriously injured.[2]
----snip----
Causes
The collapse was caused by the failure of two pin and hanger assemblies that held the deck in place on the outer side of the bridge. Rust formed within the bearing of the pin, exerting a force on the hanger which was beyond design limits for the retaining clamps. It forced the hanger on the inside part of the expansion joint at the southeast corner off the end of the pin that was holding it, and the load was shifted to outside hanger. The extra load on the remaining hanger started a fatigue crack at a sharp corner on the pin. When it failed catastrophically, the deck was supported at just three corners. When two heavy trucks and a car entered the section, the remaining expansion joint failed, and the deck crashed into the river below.
The ensuing investigation cited corrosion from water buildup due to inadequate drainage as a cause. During road mending some 10 years before, the highway drains had been deliberately blocked and the crew failed to unblock them when the road work was completed.[4] Rainwater leaked down through the pin bearings, causing them to rust. The outer bearings were fracture-critical and non-redundant, a design flaw of this particular type of structure. The bearings were difficult to inspect close-up, although traces of rust could be seen near the affected bearings.
The incident was also blamed on inadequate inspection resources in the state of Connecticut. At the time of the disaster, the state had just 12 engineers, working in pairs, assigned to inspect 3,425 bridges. The collapse came despite the nationwide inspection procedures brought about by the collapse of the Silver Bridge in West Virginia in December 1967.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mianus_River_Bridge
Yeah, privatize everything so we all have to pay the rich for breathing... what it will come to if we don't stop them
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)So say some big foreign Country owns the road, say Saudi Arabia, and they do not like something we are about to do.
They shut the road down. What is the recourse?
I know I jest when I was using SA because I know our GOOD Friends and ALLIES would never do something to hurt the USA.
robertgodardfromnj
(67 posts)Coming up with more ways to screw over the American people. Assholes.