also I-44s tolls are not electronic, you have to drive up to a toll booth, which is not what i want for I-40, its too heavily trafficked.
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personally any tolls in Tennessee needs to be electronic, unless you want 15 mile backups. and no TDOT isn't gonna pull a Oklahoma and start tolling ramps, rural counties won't have it, neither will places like Jackson where their ramps are already tightly packed together.
Oklahoma is transitioning to all electronic tolling:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=28470.0
They are actively closing the cash tollbooths right now.
its either that, or we split off the funding, tolling I-40 from memphis to the benton county line just after exit 126, and letting a private company manage the tolls and have them send 50% of the profits to a west tennessee foundation thats founded from the counties wanting a piece of the toll pie, that helps the private interests and gets projects done is better. we could have it electronically tolled from exit 12, to exit 126, or we can add a 3rd express tolled lane in the middle.
and with the profits, we can easily get major projects funded that need the extra cash inflow, like I-69 and a completion of I-269 around the western side of memphis.
All your toll revenue would get swallowed by that idea for a third lane in each direction (which it could for sure use, but $$). None left for other projects.
Also thumbs down to private toll operators. Those have not been a good arrangement for drivers on The Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road, in my opinion. Especially if the goal is to generate revenue for other highway projects. Now you have some company skimming money off the operation; money that could be used for public infrastructure, not private profit.
What Tennessee needs to do is simply let themselves borrow money to build shit. This pay-as-you-go model is actually costing the state's taxpayers MORE money than if the state simply floated some bonds to get things built faster and more cost-effectively. Plus, you also get the tremendous economic benefit of HAVING the infrastructure while you're paying it off. You come out way ahead by borrowing to build.
At this point, Tennessee has spent 12 years and probably a hundred million dollars building that arduous bypass of Union City. And it's STILL a year from completion. And even then, it still won't be done-done because they have to keep building south around Troy, which based on precedent, will probably take ANOTHER goddamn decade. So they're spending all this money for such a long time and getting no benefit out of it at all. If 15 years ago, they were able to bond this project, they could've had the funds to get the entire thing under construction and built in like 4 years, probably. That's about what it would take in any other state these days. Then for the last decade, they'd have the completed freeway open to the public benefit, generating new opportunities for their tax base and get things moving. It's penny-wise and pound foolish the way they've gone about this project and many others. I don't like it; it makes us look bad as a country. Fourteen frickin' years to build six miles of rural freeway over level ground? Pathetic!
"All your toll revenue would get swallowed by that idea for a third lane in each direction (which it could for sure use, but $$). None left for other projects.
Also thumbs down to private toll operators. Those have not been a good arrangement for drivers on The Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road, in my opinion. Especially if the goal is to generate revenue for other highway projects. Now you have some company skimming money off the operation; money that could be used for public infrastructure, not private profit."
im pro-private roads for one reason: they manage the road better at less cost. the indiana toll road, while i don't know of its condition now, the governor that sold it said they were losing money on that toll road before they sold it off. if a red state like indiana years ago was losing money on a toll road, i see no reason for tennessee to not lease major routes in tennessee to private companies
"What Tennessee needs to do is simply let themselves borrow money to build shit. This pay-as-you-go model is actually costing the state's taxpayers MORE money than if the state simply floated some bonds to get things built faster and more cost-effectively. Plus, you also get the tremendous economic benefit of HAVING the infrastructure while you're paying it off. You come out way ahead by borrowing to build."
tennnessee is trying to avoid future fiscal burdens on its infrastructure. california borrows money for their roads, and they are so far behind on their infrastructure its borderline 3rd world. i can understand why tennessee wants to do the pay as you go model, they see it as better for the taxpayers because its not putting a burden on them in the future.
"At this point, Tennessee has spent 12 years and probably a hundred million dollars building that arduous bypass of Union City. And it's STILL a year from completion. And even then, it still won't be done-done because they have to keep building south around Troy, which based on precedent, will probably take ANOTHER goddamn decade. So they're spending all this money for such a long time and getting no benefit out of it at all. If 15 years ago, they were able to bond this project, they could've had the funds to get the entire thing under construction and built in like 4 years, probably. That's about what it would take in any other state these days. Then for the last decade, they'd have the completed freeway open to the public benefit, generating new opportunities for their tax base and get things moving. It's penny-wise and pound foolish the way they've gone about this project and many others. I don't like it; it makes us look bad as a country. Fourteen frickin' years to build six miles of rural freeway over level ground? Pathetic!"
what makes us look bad as a country is how we built our roads, grid, bridges, dams, leeves, etc and never thought of the future maintence, replacements, expansions and modernization projects that would be needed decades down the road, and never bothered to make sure the funding got adjusted for both inflation and demand.
shortsightedness is whats making us look bad today, not tennessees pay as you go way of updating infrastructure. tennessee just needs to raise the gas tax by 30 cents, instead of the 8 cents with private benefits in 2016. let the companies leave the state, we got roads to build, if they don't like that, then fine, they can go to another state.
also part of that 8 cent raise had to go to bike lanes and other infrastructure that should be put off till we get ours updated completely, they're luxury infrastructure projects that should be forced to wait till we got the roads updated, and maintained well.
if not 30 cents, then lease out the interstates to private companies, so other projects are opened up.
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Topic: I-69 in TN (Read 255807 times)