posted July 18, 2008
Say no to toll roads. Tennessee has one of the best highway systems in the country. We do it without debt. Now, Gov. Bredesen's team wants us to explore toll roads. It's just another tax, and we don't need another tax.
If we have been able to build a great highway system using the pay as you go method, why change. Why do we need to create another department of government staff with more employees of government to pay for roads? Remember, create a toll road system and it means hiring toll road staff and people sitting in offices to manage that toll road staff, and then people sitting in higher offices to manage all the toll road people. It just means bigger and more government.
It's a tax, pure and simple. For once, let's stick with what has worked well for Tennessee and say no to toll roads. Once they are there, toll roads will never go away. I read where Rep. Jim Cobb wants a toll road to pay for a bridge in North Hamilton County. There's the perfect example where a select group of citizens -- this isn't an interstate highway we are talking about -- will pay $10 bucks a day to go back and forth. It's a tax, no different than any other tax you pay.
Before we take a leap of faith that is just another way for government to get more of your money, let's continue to do it the old fashioned, good government way, pay for it as you go from existing taxes. Doesn't that make sense? Write Commissioner Nicely and nicely tell him no to more taxes.
Robert Randolph
* * *
Shall we review some facts?
1. Rep. Cobb is on record that a toll bridge is his last desire but that if a toll bridge it must be in order to be built, then a toll bridge it must be. A bridge is needed from Soddy Daisy to Harrison.
2. A toll for use of a bridge is not a new tax. It isn't a tax at all. A toll is a user fee. If old Joe, down at Schmuckatelli's Muffler Bearing Manufacturing Joint, doesn't want to use it why should he be forced to pay for it by way of the road taxes he already pays for normal road maintenance and construction? By definition, a toll is not a tax. By definition, a toll is nothing more than a user fee. Don't we pay to use County Park down at the river?
3. The new law requires that if there are no alternate routes a toll shall not be charged for use of a road or bridge.
4. Tolls shall not be charged on present road facilities, only on new facilities. That's the law.
5. New bureaucracy? We already have that, a couple of them. I believe they're called the Tennessee Department of Safety and the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDoT). There are plenty of supervisory personnel available in both of these. It would additionally provide jobs for people who now sit at home and cannot find one. Pay for these jobs, however, does need to be commensurate with experience and training required to perform the work. They're low skill level jobs, not executive positions or rocket science.
6. With the advent of cameras and automatic fee collection, tolls might even be taken at an unmanned booth. Frequent users could use a scanned gizmo that attaches to the windshield such as has been used elsewhere for about the past 20 years or so. Occasional users would be responsible for having correct change, and cameras could be used to photograph cars of drivers who attempt to slide through without paying. What's good enough for Red Bank and Chattanooga ought to be plenty fine for an old bridge.
7. As a user fee a toll must be set at a level such that it will support maintenance, upkeep, and to pay off the bonds issued for construction financing. Estimated cost of the bridge in question is $300 million to $400 million. We spent $500 million, that's admitted to, on the Riverfront. The meter's still ticking on the Chattanoogan Hotel and Convention Center even though dinner for two can be over a hundred bucks, 5 years ago, and they have yet to show a profit. We'll probably spend close to a billion bucks, probably more by the time all the screaming's done, to have a billion dollar automotive plant that will provide 2,000 jobs on 1,300 acres of land that Hamilton County Citizens have paid for. What do the tax paying citizens of Hamilton County receive for these? Oops, I forgot that big fish tank downtown that is still being subsidized.
8. I'm facted out. Time for some emotion.
One must wonder where Mr. Randolph got his information not only that Rep. Cobb's first choice would be for a toll bridge in North Hamilton County, but the $10 figure for tolls. Surely not a political opponent. Numbers that have been thrown out to date in official circles are more in line with $3 to $5, with frequent user discounts for those who use the bridge, should it in fact be a toll bridge, daily to travel back and forth to work. Employers could also subsidize this as is common in other areas where parking and travel costs are expensive. But hey, it is, after all, a cost of doing business ... or getting to and from work. We can always move closer to work, too. There are choices available.
And think of the jobs that would be created just to build a humongous bridge where it's being proposed.
The greatest challenge would be to keep this from being a public/private partnership where the public partner takes all the risk and the private partner receives all of the profits, but none of the losses. A private partner would need to ante up with some cash, serious cash, and be willing to accept a potential loss if they want to play the game. If they want the bluechips, they need to be willing to play basketball instead of marbles. All construction contracts should also have penalty clauses in them for work delays, design faults, and poor work performance unlike what has been issued in the past for road work and projects such as those down at our 21st Century Waterfront. Isn't that the one that's falling down on itself? In the grand scheme of things, those infamous 7 Ps always prevail ... Proper Prior Planning Prevents, uh, Poor Performance.
Some days I wish politicians, and their cronies, would mature beyond high school antics and methodologies.
Royce E. Burrage Jr.
Royce@OfficiallyChapped.org
| Dining Out | Business | Movies | Focus | About Us |
| Church | Living Well | Memories | Outdoors | Real Estate | Student Scene | Travel |