jj_
Learned Hand
Reged: 01/11/05
Posts: 1213
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OK, you folks from Arizona are gonna get the blame if this doesn’t work out real well for us!
Mary E. Peters, Secretary Of Transportation, a fourth-generation Arizonan and an avid motorcyclist.
Wonder what she rides?
DoT bio of Mary Peters
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oneijack
Loquacious
Reged: 08/27/06
Posts: 2555
Loc: East Hampton,CT
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Not bad lookin for a grand ma either.
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The percentage you're paying is too high-priced
While you're living beyond all your means
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams
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Bucky
Loquacious
Reged: 05/21/06
Posts: 3971
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One report places her on a Fat Boy .
Forgive my OT, but I'm disappointed to read that she very strongly favors putting more tolls out there. If we are indeed going to need more money for the care & feeding of the future of the US transportation & highway system, which is a song I'm hearing far & wide these days, then I'd prefer higher fuel taxes instead of tolls, as the revenue collection infrastructure for fuel taxes is already built.
New tolls mean new toll collecting agencies, and new agencies usually equals untouchable employees and pensions, and health insurance for life, etc. etc, etc. For an example of extreme agency overhead, we pay nearly one million dollars to retire each CT state employee now, with half pay and full $0 co-pay health insurance for the retired employee, AND their spouse, for life. They aren't left to get by on 401ks and SS like the rest of us must make do with. This lush CT benefits system will remain in effect for all new state employees as well, for the next 15 years, thanks to our convicted felon jail bird governor. You'll find very few DNR orders among retired state of CT employees. As long as they're breathing, their spouse still gets the $0 co-pay municipal employee grade (read-top shelf) health insurance. Cha-ching. Sorry for the rant, but I'm one of the CT employer / taxpayer schlubs paying for this mess.
FWIW, I believe the politicians realize that tolls are less cost effective than fuel taxes, but new agencies are a way to make and repay favors, combined with how lucrative contracts to place the toll transponders and build the new toll plazas would be, (and we would need change making plazas, for you can't yet make every vehicle buy a toll transponder, and woe be unto our wallets if we need another agency to get that done on a nationwide scale) not to mention the major large bank interests that accompany the EZ-Pass style collection systems. (Did you know your EZ Pass dollars get filtered through a bank before the states get their mitts on the money?) Then there are the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th agencies required to oversee the first agencies...
For an example of the way we loves us some agencies, let's consider the "Homeland Security" folk. Don't we already have state & local Police, the FBI, The CIA, & the NSA? When one agency isn't geting the job done, instead of fixing the problems, we build new agencies as a fix.
Same as it ever was...
And to think I was just warming up to former Secretary Mineta when he described publically our unaccountable methods of subsidizing the US mass transit rail system as a "financial black hole."
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ssjones
Check Pants
Reged: 01/11/05
Posts: 5527
Loc: Hagerstown, MD
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Quote:
One report places her on a Fat Boy .
Forgive my OT, but I'm disappointed to read that she very strongly favors putting more tolls out there. If we are indeed going to need more money for the care & feeding of the future of the US transportation & highway system, which is a song I'm hearing far & wide these days, then I'd prefer higher fuel taxes instead of tolls, as the revenue collection infrastructure for fuel taxes is already built.
New tolls mean new toll collecting agencies, and new agencies usually equals untouchable employees and pensions, and health insurance for life, etc. etc, etc. For an example of extreme agency overhead, we pay nearly one million dollars to retire each CT state employee now, with half pay and full $0 co-pay health insurance for the retired employee, AND their spouse, for life. They aren't left to get by on 401ks and SS like the rest of us must make do with. This lush CT benefits system will remain in effect for all new state employees as well, for the next 15 years, thanks to our convicted felon jail bird governor. You'll find very few DNR orders among retired state of CT employees. As long as they're breathing, their spouse still gets the $0 co-pay municipal employee grade (read-top shelf) health insurance. Cha-ching. Sorry for the rant, but I'm one of the CT employer / taxpayer schlubs paying for this mess.
FWIW, I believe the politicians realize that tolls are less cost effective than fuel taxes, but new agencies are a way to make and repay favors, combined with how lucrative contracts to place the toll transponders and build the new toll plazas would be, (and we would need change making plazas, for you can't yet make every vehicle buy a toll transponder, and woe be unto our wallets if we need another agency to get that done on a nationwide scale) not to mention the major large bank interests that accompany the EZ-Pass style collection systems. (Did you know your EZ Pass dollars get filtered through a bank before the states get their mitts on the money?) Then there are the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th agencies required to oversee the first agencies...
Same as it ever was...
And to think I was just warming up to former Secretary Mineta when he described publically our unaccountable methods of subsidizing the US mass transit rail system as a "financial black hole."
Here, here! Well said. MD is considering making I-81 thru MD (all 10 miles of it) a toll road to cover costs to widen to 3-4 lanes. Makes no sense at all, and I voiced my opinion to our Sec of Transportation. PA and WVA above/below us only have 2 lanes on I-81 so there will be huge bottlenecks at each end. Folks will avoid the toll-road and use Rt. 11 which parallels I-81, which was never designed for that kind of traffic and is near my neighborhood. I'll fight this one till the end if necessary.
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Al
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bennybmn
Should be Riding
Reged: 01/11/05
Posts: 12687
Loc: Long Island, NY
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That is funny. Build infrastructure in order to build infrastructure... Makes sense. Is middle management a contageous desease?
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Benny
Black & Silver '02
Too many mods to list
Not enough miles ridden
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Bucky
Loquacious
Reged: 05/21/06
Posts: 3971
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Our tax dollars at work - spend a dime to make a nickle, and we'll make up the loss on volume (not)
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SalMaglie
Loquacious
Reged: 01/12/05
Posts: 3734
Loc: Tucson, Az
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There was an article in the local paper about Mary Peters and her love of toll roads the other day for states like Arizona. To me it's just another effort to Californicate Arizona as she proposed privatized commuter toll roads like they have in the LA area.
"She acknowledged that Arizona is a "donor state" when it comes to federal highway aid, sending Washington more in gasoline taxes collected in the state than it receives back in federal highway aid."
But we need toll roads? Just give us our money that we pay in taxes so we can build our own roads! What makes it even worse is the fact that Arizona is one of the faster growing states. So they take our gas tax money and give it to some area with a dwindling population? Just another example of the gubmint not getting it.
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redbike7
3/4 Throttle
Reged: 07/24/06
Posts: 948
Loc: Cedar Park, Texas
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The toll road business is sweeping the country. It's just another form of taxes, one we did not vote on. Just what exactly do gasoline taxes and license plate taxes pay for?
Our present Texas governor wants to cut a road 10 lens wide with a railroad in the middle from the Mexican border to Oklahoma. And use a Mexican company to do it. I'm hoping we elect anyone but him.
I'm not against toll roads like Houston has voted on and implemented but I am against 'committees' that were not elected turning existing roads into toll roads by repaving them or some non-sense. I was once a big support of GWB but I've had enough of this highhanded r*pe of the American people by his stooges.
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Redbike7
2006 America
No amount of skill can overcome gross stupidity. Ask me how I know...never mind, I forgot...
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bennybmn
Should be Riding
Reged: 01/11/05
Posts: 12687
Loc: Long Island, NY
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Funny I was thinking about this today. The ONLY sense I can make of tolls vs. taxes is that everyone pays the same toll so it is "fair" as opposed to gas tax which will cost the gas guzzlers more. Of course in TX don't you all drive F150s? 
That being said, they toll roads have WAY more layers of fat like someone else suggested.
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Benny
Black & Silver '02
Too many mods to list
Not enough miles ridden
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77T140V
Learned Hand
Reged: 01/11/05
Posts: 1175
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Quote:
... Californicate....
Yet another new word for my ever expanding vocabulary. Outstanding! Thank You.
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