Recently in my neighborhood, the parents became concerned and alarmed when some guys in SUVs seemed to be taking pictures with their cell phones of kids playing. They were not from our neighborhood, and the collective radar spike assumed the very worst. Then reports started trickling in of similar occurrences in other Apex neighborhoods. When the strangers were confronted, they said they were real estate appraisers and took off.
The police were called. Registered sex offenders were accused of being in the neighborhoods. People got very upset. Then today the Raleigh newspaper ran a story about the concerns being unlikely, and that the guys in SUVs probably were real estate appraisers. It turns out that Wake County has hired appraisers and sent them to evaluate homes in Apex for tax purposes.
Ok, so here is where I blow steam. The county is wasting millions of dollars on incomprehensible school busing and student assignment plans, they converted 22 schools to year round and virtually eliminated traditional calendar schools from our community, and they have been shown to be vastly overpaying for land to build more schools. The school board had amassed more than $40 million in a "slush fund." Half the kids in Apex are not allowed to attend school in the town where they live. The school board is appealing a lawsuit verdict that they lost in spite of making prior public commitments to abide by the judge's ruling (wasting more money). And now the county wants to raise our taxes? Exactly what part of this am I supposed to be happy about?
The only community in Wake County that seems to get the shaft more often than Apex is our next door neighbor, New Hill. There are whole blogs that could be devoted just to how unfairly the people of New Hill have been treated. But Apex runs a close second. From the lack of neighborhood schools, the forced conversions to year round, the plan to build the first toll road in North Carolina here, the list just keeps getting longer. There is no way to feel like we get back anything close in services to what we are paying. But pay and pay we do. And it looks like we are about to pay even more.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
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I can't comment on the other aspects of your post, but toll roads are a way of life up here in New England. The thing about toll roads are that they tend to be the best maintained roads around. In the winter especially one learns to really appreciate toll roads because they have the funding necessary to get them quickly cleared after really bad winter storms. Really, tolls are like a user fee, where those who use a road are the ones who pay for the road. This is a much more effective way to ensure key freeways are properly funded.
Of course it is important to make sure that tolls are used to fund the toll road they are collected for and not diverted for other purposes. Properly managed, a toll road can become mostly self-sufficient.
I drove one summer from Raleigh up to Cape Cod. By the time we hit Connecticut, I absolutely blew a gasket. My wife was stunned at the vehemence of my anger against toll roads. Having grown up in the south and west without them, and being pretty much set in my views on the matter by 1980 or so, I guess I'll never be able to support them. But, I never bought into the whole mindset of government by user fees. It goes in the direction of privatization and a lot of other trends that basically lead to a fundamental failure to invest in infrastructure or human capital because it is intrinsically the right thing to do, and leads to a system of providing services to those willing to pay the user fee while withholding them from those who cannot pay. That is a perfectly reasonable position to hold, from a certain perspective. It just happens not to be my perspective.
One does not fully appreciate toll roads until one sees how well roads are maintained in the worst of conditions.
Two or thee winters ago I had to drive back to Maine from a conference in Tennessee in late January and got caught in a really severe nor easter by the time we got to Northern Virginia. We had to put up for the night in Maryland because it was late and the roads were quickly becoming impassible even for someone like my self who has spent most of their life in the harshest of winter climates (e.g. Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, South Dakota, Alaska, Maine, etc.). The next morning we continued North through Pennsylvania and then headed East through New York, up through Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
That day I drove on the most dangerous roads I had ever been on in my life. Pennsylvania had spent the night plowing, but failed to sand or salt the interstate, which turned it into a solid sheet of black ice. For several hours the fastest we could "safely" drive was about 10 - 15 mph and not even truckers were willing to go faster. NY, CT and MA were better because they are used to maintaining winter roads, but better is a relative term. It was still white knuckle driving and we passed dozens of accidents throughout the day.
The greatest relief in the world was when we finally hit the Mass Pike. It was not only clear, but properly sanded and salted. Here it was the worst nor easter I had seen in years and the turnpike was as clean as if it were a minor storm and we didn't see a single accident on it. The moment we left the Mass Pike, we went right back to white knuckle driving that would have stopped any fair climate driver. The moment we crossed the state line into New Hampshire and were on the NH Turnpike, the roads were again clear and driving reasonably safe. On the Maine Turnpike one wouldn't have even known there had been a storm except for the fact that we were basically driving through a canyon of snow.
From where we live in Portland Maine we have two choices if we want to go to Augusta Maine. We can either take the Maine Turnpike (I-95) or we can take the freeway I-295. The driving time is similar, but we almost always take the turnpike especially in the winter.
As far as I'm concerned, they could turn every major highway in New England into a toll road because then I would know I could count on those roads being in the best of condition regardless of what mother nature throws at us.
The thing about a toll road is that it always has a steady source of predictable funding for maintenance and upgrades. With freeways they have to compete against lots of other interests and priorities to get the funding they need. Too often this means bridge repairs and repaving get delayed and plowing budgets axed. In Minnesota we saw an interstate bridge collapse, yet on the Maine Turnpike aging bridges have been getting replaced in a very systematic fashion.
Infrastructure like roads take a great deal of money to maintain. Putting that infrastructure at the mercy of political funding fights is a sure way to end up with bad roads, which increase the repair expenses of the vehicles we drive and disrupt the flow of commerce when roads fall into severe disrepair and/or mother nature unleashes her fury.
I'd gladly pay a toll on every major highway I drove on if it removed said roads from political funding battles and those roads were maintained to the level I have come to expect from toll roads here in the Northeast.
In regards to being able to afford to pay, beyond the bridges and tunnels in New York City (where everything is expensive not just bridges), I've never seen a toll road that put a true economic hardship on anyone. For regular commuters, most toll roads have commuter passes that offer steep discounts.
I really look at tolls on roads as being no different than paying for other utilities like water and electric. Those who use the service the most, should pay the most. This is the theory behind fuel taxes, it is just that tolls do a better job of targeting funding.
Besides maybe more toll roads would encourage more people to carpool or opt for mass transit. Most highways have too many one occupant vehicles on them anyways.
By the way, today I'm driving to Boston (2.5 hrs each way). I will be spending about $6 on tolls for the round trip and won't even think twice about it.
Here is an additional thought for you.
Many of the toll roads in the Northeast, including some you probably drove on during your trip to Cape Cod, would not exist unless they were toll roads. In some cases these toll roads started off as entirely private funded endeavors, in other cases (particularly with bridges) taxpayers only voted to fund their building when it was promised that the construction bonds would be repaid via tolls. Some roads, bridges and tunnels like the New Hampshire Turnpike wouldn't be able to be properly funded by gasoline taxes because how federal gas taxes are divvied up is partially determined by where the taxes were collected. In the case with the NH Turnpike, very few people who use this road actually fuel in New Hampshire as they are simply passing through on their way from Mass to Maine. A similar fate would befall the Maine Turnpike. In cases like this, without tolls the residents of the state would be saddled with the burden of figuring out how to fund the road/bridge while a very large portion to majority of the people using said infrastructure would actually be out of staters, who fueled up in other states. I'm certain that neither the NH Turnpike nor the Maine Turnpike would be half the roads they are without tolls because there would have been no money to build and expand them.
For me, I don't see roads at all being in the same category as utilities. And I fully expect governments of looking at the toll roads as a source of revenue, with the proceeds going into some pot that gets siphoned off for other uses. In other words, they see this as another "golden goose" revenue stream.
What I object to is the mentality that starts out in this direction, but then gets extended to belief systems like people are entitled to as much education as they are willing to pay for, and then as much healthcare as they are willing to pay for. And while we are at it, we will provide police and fire protection to those willing to pay user fees, and will extend justice as far as people can purchase it. That is what I think this all heads toward.
To me, phone, gas, TV, internet access, electricy and water are utilities. People should pay for those things according to their usage.
Roads, bridges, railways, sewer lines, libraries, fire protection, police protection, the bill of rights, rule of law, safe food, safe water, access to healthcare systems, and educational access are all areas of service that government should provide to all without accounting for how much an individual or family "uses" those things.
As for driving on toll roads, I have done it in those places where that is the norm, but anywhere I have the option I avoid them. Last year I had to drive from Raleigh to Louisville, KY, and Google said the most direct route was through West Virginia. But I drove to Knoxville, TN and then north, just to avoid driving on the West Virginia Turnpike. If they do build the toll road to Apex, I am sure I will never drive on it.
We don't always drive on our turnpike. For instance when we go across town we could either take the turnpike, which would take 12 minutes or the surface streets, which takes 14 minutes. We always take surface streets.
When we go to a friends house, however, if we take the turnpike it cuts our driving time in half saving us almost 20 minutes.
In our region, the only turnpike I am aware of where funds are siphoned off for other purposes is the New Hampshire turnpike (I-95). They have one tollbooth, which is positioned to mostly catch people just passing through NH from Mass to Maine. Their figuring is to bleed a drop of blood from those who are just passing through, but not stopping in NH (and thus denying NH any direct benefit from this tourist traffic). In NH alcohol is also only sold at state owned liquor stores and they have a lottery. Because of revenues from tolls, the liquor stores and their lottery, NH has no sales tax and no income tax. Thus those who are responsible for voting on how their section of road is run are very happy with the situation. Who are we who do not live in their state to tell them how to run their roads?
While I agree that certain things should be always paid for by uniform taxes (e.g. public safety and schools), I really see some highways as being more like utilities and it being appropriate for them to be funded by user fees. Besides other forms of public transportation (e.g. subways, trains and buses) are funded at least in part by user fees.
Tolls on certain roads can preform three purposes: 1) the generate revenue to maintain the road/bridge that might not otherwise have adequate funding (e.g. NH and Maine Turnpikes where out of state traffic accounts for a very significant amount of the traffic load); 2) provide a source of funding to allow the road/bridge to be built in the first place (e.g. PA, NJ & ME turnpikes, most bridges around NY, etc.); 3) can moderate usage of the toll road (e.g. encouraging people to take mass transit or carpool).
I would have a problem with a state I lived in turning an existing freeway into a toll road simply to siphon off the revenue to fund other activities (especially without taxpayer approval via a vote). If, however, the road doesn't exist to begin with, and building a toll road is a way to secure proper short term and long term funding for a needed road, I'd have no problems voting in favor of the toll road as long as there were safe guards, which prevented revenues from being used for anything other than the road itself. If more money is collected than is needed to maintain and operate the toll road/bridge, then it is no longer a user fee and becomes a tax.
The thing is when a toll road is set up, it needs to be run by a turnpike authority that is overseen by but separate from the state government (just like an electric utility). All tolls collected need to stay with the authority and never go back to the state government. Toll rates should be set only so high as is needed to pay off bonds issued to build the road, pay for maintenance and toll road services (e.g. roadside assistance, plowing, and law enforcement on the toll road).
While I could avoid some toll roads on our trips to visit family in New Jersey, I don't try to, because I know in foul weather those roads will be better maintained and in the big scheme of things the time, mileage and gas saved by using the toll roads outweighs the amount paid in tolls (I'd spend three times more on gasoline than I would save on tolls).
I think you will find that if they do build a toll road to Apex and that road reduces driving time and saves gas such that the savings outweighs the cost of tolls, you and everyone else will opt to use it instead of other routes. Of course if the road doesn't save drivers money compared to existing alternatives it won't make much sense to use.
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