In the Austin American-Statesman, there's an article on "Managed Tolls" as a possible alternative to full-fledged toll roads proposed for Mopac and other major routes in Austin, Texas. What the article describes sounds similar to the HOV lanes in Houston and other cities. An advantage would be that Mopac would remain a free route for those who cannot or will not pay tolls for roads that were already paid for with taxes. It sounds like an interesting compromise.
Interesting perspective. As long as I've been here, Austin has been building roads. (Of course, I remember when MoPac was a railroad and nothing BUT a railroad.) Texas is about nothing if not its roads! ;-)
However, I'm not yet convinced that jumping into toll roads full tilt boogie is the best way to serve ALL of the population. The managed lanes, as I said, might be a workable compromise, as long as we don't skimp on maintaining the non-toll roads in favor of the roll roads. In other words, toll road maintenance should NOT be paid for with taxes - that's double taxation, just as converting a non-toll road to a toll road is.
It's true that Austin is never not building a road. I personally believe that there is a conspiracy to be repairing a road along whatever path I've chosen to use for the semester. While it may be a good idea to build highways out along the areas Austin is most likely to build, building tollways is simply fashionable. The highways have been paid for. I have been told that it is the legislation's own wording that tollways were allowed to begin with on the understanding that they cease to be charged for when they've been paid for. Maitenenance fees are the justification... Taxes will not go down, nor likely will they slow down in being risen, because the tollway pays for itself. The money will simply be used for other projects. The tollway is there because the precedent has been set, not because it is legal. The precedent was set out of laziness.
Not much of this has to do with realty. The people moving into Texas find it inconceivable that I had never driven on a tollway until I visited a friend in Pennsylvania. I found it inconceivable that they could not avoid them if they wanted to. Therefore, the people moving into Texas will be ok with the tollroads, and the precedent will be happily confirmed for Austin by its residents who don't believe they have a choice.
Yes, the toll roads are inevitable. No, I didn't have anything to say about it. I wasn't living in Dallas when that happened.
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