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Good and bad reasons to keep tolls on the turnpike
By adamg on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 9:44am
Sco says yay on environmental issues and nay on the loss of toll-collector jobs:
... I appreciate that the very purpose of unions is to protect peoples' jobs, but I have to say that the reason that we have tolls is not to provide employment for toll takers. ...
Carpundit writes that if the tolls stay west of 128, it will be the first tax hike of the Patrick administration.
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Comments
And the T Fare increase...
...is the latest tax hike (and one of the last "F-U, Massachusetts!" from Romney/Healey. The T hike is far more egregious considering it is an actual increase and it comes from a "tax cutting" administration.
Huh?
So the fact that Romney made a pledge he knew he couldn't keep to lower the tolls means that patrick dealing in reality is a "tax hike"? I know that carpundit is partisan, but does he REALLY believe that?
Let's say that Romney declares tomorrow that he'd like to eliminate all taxes in Massachusetts. But he doesn't make it happen. Will that be the second tax hike of the Patrick/Murray administration?
And if Romney offers to sell him the Bourne Bridge, would carpundit buy it?
Huh? II
Letting a bunch of thieves continue to collect tolls for a road that was paid off in 1983 is "dealing in reality"?
Well, no, it wasn't paid off in '83
But the reason why is just as bad:
When the final bond payments were about to be made (I seem to remember it was a bit later than '83, but whatever), the turnpike authority suddenly decided it had to widen the turnpike from the Framingham line to 128 from six to eight lanes. Never mind that it was just a fundamentally stupid idea, since the road would immediately narrow back to six lanes on the other side of 128. The authority issued several hundred dollars in new bonds for the project.
Which, of course, soon got cancelled. But, naturally, you just don't give bonds back. Voila! The authority's prime raison d'etre - paying off bondholderrs - was preserved.
It was a big deal in Natick and Framingham, where I was a reporter at the time, which is why I remember this.
Don't forget T-riders who
Don't forget T-riders who get are taking it as well-- no green line extension, no red-blue connection, just higher fares.
don't the turnpike tolls also pay to maintain the masspike itself? shouldn't they have to pay that?
should we have high-cost commuter and shipping licenses for big dig travel? passing the buck to the people who use the tunnels, but also the consumers who benefit from goods and services with easy access THROUGH (read, not TO) the city from the ports, out to the suburbs?
Yeah, it was.
If my mortgage company decides to tell me in year 29 that I'm going to have to keep paying after my 30 years is up because they decided to finance their new computer system by soaking us customers with additional bills, that doesn't equate to my not paying off my loan.
Just like the 'temporary 18 month emergency tax hike of 1989', this is typical MA Democrat politics.
(and their raison d'etre is maintaining the $65K toll collector's jobs for people who coincidentally have the same last names as people in the Legislature (and where does the linked post say anything about 'yay on environmental issues' pertaining to the T-Pike?))
To clarify
Dave, you're welcome to argue that the tolls should be abolished. but that's irrelevant here. Romney did not eliminate the tolls--he made an empty gesture as a lame duck, probably trying to salvage healey's election hopes. So if Patrick doesn't eliminate them, it is not a tax hike.
That's what I was saying, in response to Carpundit's assertion that it would be the first tax hike of the patrick adminsitration.