Stolen from my favourite Facebook group (warning: not really safe for work).
Literally my thoughts as I try to navigate around Brisbane. A trip from the west to the airport can involve up to half a dozen tolls if you do it wrong.
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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I think the government shouldn't pay for roads... they should pay for much more efficient forms of transportation like trains, buses, and bicycle infrastructure.
To be fair I like the sentiment but the message is just wrong at least in the United States. Here toll roads are privately built roads in conjunction with public entities. They contract generally defines a certain period where tolls can be collected to recoup the cost of the road with profit so say a road costs 5 mil they might be able to collect for 10 years with a estimated value of 40mil.
It's crazy and nonsensical when the smart money is in public funding of grand national projects like high speed rail with a focus on cargo and intercity travel preferably underground. Japan is doing a huge project that moved most of their services into deep underground tunnels and I think that's a smart thing to do for the us.
Similar here, but the contract periods tend to be much longer. Like 50 to 100 years before they'll go toll-free, which is just absurd really. And they're not fully private ventures, taxpayer money is spent on these bits of infrastructure.
And the worst part is they don't really do anything to improve traffic long-term. During peak hour, it's not unusual to jump in the tunnel only to be stuck in the same gridlock traffic as you'd be in anyway, only you just paid 6 bucks for the privilege.
I don't think government funded roads typically improve traffic either lol, only public transit and better city design is gonna do that.
I say let the private companies try to make their money, the cost of driving should reflect its true cost to society to push people towards more sustainable options. And once there are less people on the road, existing tolls will have no choice but to set pricing competatively or die (b.c. traffic wouldn't be a concern anymore)
Maybe I'm a bit extreme in my position, but I really hate cars for so many reasons...
Sorta the same but fuck corpos, a federalized rail system is a do or die thing nationally. If world war breaks out again we aren't separated from the rest of the world in the same way we were before and thus isolation will not save us.
Not to mention high speed till roads allows governments to mandate trucks be forced to use them, which makes free local free roads less dangerous, more durable and less congested.