Trapped in Matter

The Privatization Of U.S. Roadways

Foreign group taking over Indiana Toll Road

The Spanish-Australian group Cintra-Macquarie is also the current leaseholder of the Chicago Skyway. Sections of the Skyway are still in poor condition. For the amount charged I would expect the quality of the road to be maintained consistently.

Cintra-Macquarie to take over Chicago Skyway for 1.8b

"Under the terms of the Lease Agreement, the operator must comply with detailed operating standards to assure safety in operations and capital maintenance that meet high engineering standards during the term of the lease. The Chicago Police Department will continue to patrol the Skyway and protect its customers."

It seems to me that the state of our country is in pretty bad shape if we have to resort to selling U.S. assets to corporations – foreign or domestic.

Toll Roads

Toll roads are an issue that boils my blood (just ask theWife). If corporations are paying to lease them, there must be a profit to be made. I myself think toll roads are a form of racketeering. What is the government doing with all the money generated by the gas tax?

To me toll plazas create artificial bottlenecks that unnecessarily slow down the flow of traffic. Yeah, you could bend over and use a system like I-PASS, which is an electronic toll collection system that places a transponder on the windshield and automatically debits an account. Systems like I-PASS doesn't seem to be a solution to me, more like a band-aid® furthering convenience. Those who refuse to use I-PASS and would much rather pay with cash are now charged TWICE as much per toll.

The Illinois State Highway Authority is currently implementing Open Road Tolling (ORT) to combat the congestion created by manual toll collection, i.e., CA$H. Here is an epic video of the benefits of ORT. The next step taken will probably be a form of “taxing by the mile”.

Taxing by the mile

The idea behind taxing by the mile is a global-positioning-system (GPS) device would be installed in every vehicle. New cars would be sold with the GPS device pre-installed. The device would not only record the drivers’ in-state mileage, but also record the amount of time spent on the roads (heavy traffic). This information would be transmitted to a satellite, which then would transmit the information to the filling station where the driver is refueling so the proper tax can be charged at the pump.

I’m not going to go into the possible negative aspects of having a tracking device placed in vehicles that could be used for nefarious reasons by the government.

“People are driving more miles, putting more wear and tear on the roads, but more fuel efficient cars are starting to erode the gas tax,” said Mike Lawson, executive director of Transportation California, a coalition of business and labor groups who back transportation infrastructure improvements.” Full article

I think this person has a good point to argue against the above quote.

“So,let me get this right Here.

First the state dictates that automobile manufacturers must produce a more fuel efficient car.

They comply and we buy the new improved version and the state ends up losing money and to make up the loss the state is looking into a budget ?...........nope,you guessed it ! Another tax.

And to top it off,they want some sort of an electronic device implanted in the car to do the reporting on the miles.I wonder how much this will cost the average consumer ? And what will a replacement cost ?

Couldn't this be done at the time of Your registration every year ?

What we need is a much more efficient government that lives within it's budget and stops affecting my budget at every whim.” Link

I couldn’t agree more. It seems to me that the government wastes a lot of time and money. The red tape appears to be getting too thick. We are suffocating ourselves with the weight of ideas that temporarily fix excessive forward thinking, which seems to be based on how much money can be quickly placed in the bank. Many ideas and inventions are regarded as solutions, but in fact may be just better fuel that powers a problem forward faster and more efficiently, camouflaging itself along the way.

Side note: This is my 23 post and it's the 23 day of April. ;)

posted by Crackpot! @ 4:44 PM