Aren't the roads better for the driver when the road is less crowded? How is paying more for an inferior product a success for capitalism?

So how does that pricing affect E-Z Pass users, who don't get a visible display of how much they're getting charged?

TheOther: Aren't the roads better for the driver when the road is less crowded? How is paying more for an inferior product a success for capitalism?

Higher tolls during peak times will get some drivers off the highways, making it better for everyone who's willing to pay. Truckers will be more likely to drive at night; commuters will be more likely to carpool or take mass transit.

It'd be coolest if there was a way to charge a toll on only the leftmost lane (on 3+ lane highways), and charge it only for the amount of time you actually spent in the left lane. You could pay $0.25 per mile if you wanted to go 60 MPH while all the other cars crawled along at 20 or so in the other lanes for free.

i drove 8 exits on the new york turnpike last week and the ticket said i owed $27.35. at first, the toll booth guy said 'december suprise!' but in the end it was just a mistake.

/do individual cars create more 'wear and tear' on the road when there are more people around? or, more directly, what do these toll fees go to that is traffic-dependent?

What are you all worried about?

They told us when they were building them that the tolls would pay off the roads and become freeways by 1968 at the latest.

If they implement any unavoidable toll roads around me im going to finally break down and buy that ultralight gyro ive been eyeballing.

Unless it's my personal road and not the government's charging the fees, I don't see where capitalism figures in here.

/o Onstar, save me from toll roads.

Can we all just get along and create some space between ourselves and the asshat that drives with his knees shaves and talks on his cell phone to his stock broker about what he's reading in the business pages.

/Drives with knees
//From Minneapolis to Fargo
///I floss and talk on my phone
////Still a better driver than most because when I'm driving I pay attention first and fark around last.

i thought this had to be written by ric romero.... Fastrak has been doing this for at least five years...

Prices rise when demand rises, even if supply remains constant. That's not new.

Also, this is how toll roads in Southern CA have worked since I've known them.

/Drive the 91 and 241

Geez, you don't think people are on the roads all at the same time FOR A REASON do you?

I don't care how cheap it is to drop kids off at school at 4am, I'm not going to do it.

It's about the equalizing forces of supply and demand.

The supply of road is constant of course, but the effeciancy of use drops drastically as more cars try to use it. Therefore the cost to use it rises...Capitalism

Oh, it's a great plan. Southern California has had it for years. You have to get in the lane ahead of where the traffic gets bad, and sometimes you pay $2.25 to go the same speed as the rest of traffic. But when the price hits $6.50, you know it's screwed up ahead. That $6.50 takes you about 5 or 6 miles, and sometimes saves you half an hour. Same road, different prices.

So one article about a Fark party & now Washington Post articles are allowed? So if the New York Times or Chicago Tribune print an article fellating Fark they will no longer be automatically rejected?

"whats in your wallet?"

I'd quote some crap from Jennifer Government about toll roads, but Hussein's death has pushed me into a reflective mood.

Carry on, dear Farkers. You'll get no attempts at trolling from me tonight.

This isn't capitalism, this is government intervention in otherwise free choice (driving a particular road) to achieve a desired (rational or irrational) goal, that of relieving traffic congestion.

Is smitty a troll, uneducated, or both?

The article says the Metro is planning to charge more to commuters who travel to the busiest stations at peak hours. How is that fair? It's actually less expensive per passenger to run full trains to a central location than it is to run almost empty trains to far-flung locations. It's the people who want to take a midnight train to the middle of nowhere who should pay a premium.

I can understand congestion pricing for cars. The idea is: if it's too expensive to drive more people will take the Metro. What's the low cost alternative to the Metro? A long, long walk?

:(
bridge toll is going up to $4 here in the sf bay area starting january 1.

/got nuthin else

Suck it all you Farkers - I am retired & only drive when I want to. Don't have to scramble to get to some lame job. All I do is spend my kids inheritance!! Hey Kids you can suck it up too!!

I will also drive an extra 50 miles to avoid a toll road.
So byte me CalTrans!!

Y'all have a nice day!

good ole flopp
bridge toll is going up to $4 here in the sf bay area starting january 1.

/got nuthin else


At those prices, I can see why.
/ I'll be here all week
// Be sure to tip your waitress

How the hell is this 'Spiffy'???

When it comes to toll roads, I just avoid the damn things. With the insanly high price of gas, and the toll roads in the area charging a toll every few miles and knowing that many of the toll roads are not ran by the government, but a company that is from another nation, I'd just rather keep the money that I would spend on toll roads and spend it on myself.

I know when the roads are the worse (it's called Rush Hour) and unlike the average driver, I sat down with a map one day and looked for other routes during rush hour, and even spent a weekend travelling the backroads to make sure I could do it. Now during rush hour I can make better time than most people in the area (had to change that plan when part of my alternative route became a farking toll road).

That's my style, kick them while they're down.

Genius plan; once you learn the reasoning behind it you'll support the idea. Everybody benefits from variable toll pricing.

The reasoning behind it is that the social cost of driving on a congested road is greater than the private cost. That is without any form of tolls, by choosing to drive on a congested road you are costing all the other drivers on the road more than you would pay to use the road. Hard to explain at first, but I'll keep going.

When a road is extremely congested, say that when one additional car decides to drive on it every other car on the road loses an extra 5 seconds from the additional slow down, now again say there are 10,000 cars losing that 5 seconds. That works out to society collectively losing almost 14 hours of work time because one additional car choose to drive on this road. Factor in lost wages and that is around $300 dollars that just disappeared from society and went entirely into waste.

I'm going to make the next part overly simplistic to get the point across of why this is good. Say that they implement variable toll prices and the toll is $10 cheaper when there is no congestion, so you don't cost society anything. If the $10 is worth more to you than making your trip at that particular time of day when the roads are congested, you'll choose to move your trip and say the $10. Now society just saved that $300 from earlier that would have been lost if the extra car was on the road.

By using these type of tolls to close the gap between the social cost of driving and the private cost, the forces of supply and demand are equalized by the tolls instead of wasted time. All the wasted time is now turning into taxes, everybody is better off, and other taxes can be lowered with the extra money that is collected. This is especially valuable to people who highly value their time.

I can try to find some of my graphs on my old economics research projects that covered this topic if some people are still having trouble understanding it.

They take the EZ Pass discount away during rush hour on the NJ turnpike

Gothmolly,

As you will be taught in almost every economics class: government intervention is good when there is a gap between the social and private cost associated with something.

Old news--the 91 Freeway in LA has been doing this for years.

MEOWSPIDER: Hard to explain at first, but I'll keep going.

please do, oh god of tolls....

/zzzzzzzzz

My problem with this is that you have a captive audience. People need to get to work or home and will do so regardless of the the cost. In the long run this means that progressively more and more personal income will be used for getting to and from work. The only way this benefits the people is if there is actual alternatives to taking the toll road, which I doubt there is. This will either lead to higher prices on good or a weaker economy. This is also the same scam they use to keep college tuition rising at astronomical rates.

/oddly enough I usually consider myself a free marketer
// been through enough traffic jams and have enough college loan to know when the free market works and when it doesn't

Great Janitor: What roads in the Metroplex are operated by a foreign power? I'll never use those to get where I need to go. None of that crap here in New Jersey. Either the state/counties/port authorities get the toll money or it's a free road.

when did paying the gov't more money become good for capitalism?

What roads in the Metroplex are operated by a foreign power?

From what I understand, 121 was bought by a foreign company. Which explains why they turned a paid off road into a toll road and why you can drive down it without having to pay right then and there. They just photograph your license plate and bill you later on (but doesn't work with out of state drivers, they get to drive 121 for free because they can't bill them). The government run toll roads require you to pay at every toll booth, or buy a toll tag.

Truckers will be more likely to drive at night; commuters will be more likely to carpool or take mass transit.

/Yeah, because truckers get to choose when they have to deliver their cargo.

//oh yeah, and mass transit is an option for commuters? I travel 50 minutes to work in Atlantic City, NJ you know how "fast" it is to take mass transit, 1:45 minimum, not counting the time you have to spend waiting for busses.

///Carpool, how many people do you really know that work together and live resonably close to each other. Carpooling is all well and good but not really an option ever.

This is new?

As someone said above, the 91 in california has been doing this for at least 5 years.

As a Northern Virginian I can honestly say that this is the stupidest damn article I've read on the subject yet. And I don't appreciate being accused of not agreeing to pay enough taxes to support the roads. Northern Virginians pay the lion's share of the taxes for the entire state (by a VERY large margin) and yet we get very little back. The legislative delegates from the rest of the state are incredibly greedy and have been blocking our road improvement proposals for years while taking our money for their own pet projects.

The fact of the matter is, Northern Virginia IS the Virginia economy. You don't have to like it, but we'd all really appreciate it if you would give us our own money back so we can fix our roads, get to our jobs a little easier, and continue paying for your schools. A thank you every once in a while rather than derision about how we aren't "real" Virginians would also not go unappreciated. You're farking welcome.

As for Metro raising their rates, they're nuts. They've been hemorrhaging customers for the past few years now and raising rates sure isn't going to fix the problem. I'd love to find out which business school keeps teaching its students that the way to gain business once it's begun to drop off is to raise prices. They really have to be stopped.

In the mean time, all Metro is going to do is convince more of their diminishing customer base to stop riding while attracting exactly zero new business. No doubt we'll see even further rate hikes a year or two from now in the face of "rising operation costs" and "declining ridership." I know I'll sure be surprised to hear this didn't fix the problem.

/Why yes, I was stuck in traffic for quite a while trying to get home this afternoon
//How did you guess?

Let's hand it to Florida which is smart enough waive tolls as people pass through during times of extreme congestion to alleviate the problem, just had it happen on the way to Orlando for Christmas :) Have obviously also had it during hurricane evacuations (as I was travelling toward the evac zone)

carlisimo: I don't care how cheap it is to drop kids off at school at 4am, I'm not going to do it.

then put their butts on the schoolbus.

I used to 'enjoy' paying taxes for the roads I drive on, the stop signs I stop at, and the people who protect me.

Hmm, I wonder what the government can spend it's money on now...since they are too poor to build roads (like the Interstate).

Serve the tax payers. Represent. Serve the tax payers.

Seriously. If this government can no longer figure out how to build roads to relieve congestion, the US should fall down a notch on the civilization score. It is sad.

Where is the money going? It is being poured into other countries by the people who have the money and are capable of investing wealth into the places that will return the most.

Sounds fair. You want to be rich, work to be rich. Well, I think that as long as you pay taxes and don't cheat, you deserve the same social services. If your local government is tolling you to pay for a service, you are being cheated somehow. If there are enough people to congest the streets on your way to work, there is something wrong.

fark the poor.

Reagan must have a chubby in his grave.

This isn't capitalism per se, any more than any other demonstration of basic market economics is de facto capitalism. It's an example of a Pigovian Tax (see George Mankiw's blog for more). Via Wiki: A Pigovian tax (also spelled Pigouvian tax) is a tax levied to correct the negative externalities of a market activity. That is, we don't want people to drive, we charge them more for it. If capitalism assumes a free hand rather than external planning, then this would be the opposite of capitalism, but still an adherence to market principles of influencing behavior.

There is no market, this is an example of a regulated monopoly. Capitalism has little play in this because there is no free market to compete in. So is this regulated monopoly offering better service when they increase the price?

Toll roads suck. All they are is a way for the government to weasel out of their responsibility to keep up the infrastructure.