Letter- Who Benefits from HOT Lanes

Good letter from someone in Fredericksburg paper:
Bob


Just who benefits from HOT lanes?
January 31, 2007 12:50 am
Just who benefits from HOT lanes?
After I read last Tuesday's Free Lance-Star article on HOV/HOT lanes, I am at a loss about who will benefit from this initiative [Toll lanes may come quicker, Jan. 23].

The initiative was described as a "public-private" partnership, but there is no information regarding how much of the $913 million (2003 estimate) our tax dollars will cover.

If it is like sports stadiums and other such projects, the taxpayers will pay most of the costs.

Now who will benefit? Based on the numbers in the article, a one-way fare between Massaponax and Arlington would be $15.12. That is $151.20 weekly and $7,257.60 annually (considering a 48-week work year), not including gas and vehicle maintenance.

Compare that with the cost of a commuter bus ride of $18 per day, for an annual cost of $4,320 for the same 48 weeks.

I don't see these numbers being much help to low- and middle-income Interstate 95 travelers.

Here's how I see it. The average commuter on the HOV/HOT lanes will have to endure frequent delays and inconveniences during construction, put up with more single-occupant Mercedes and BMWs (who else can pay more than $7,000 annually to commute?), and pay more taxes, while Fluor Virginia and Transurban USA get wealthier, and upper-income commuters avoid the traffic at our expense.

Our lawmakers must do a better job of explaining the benefits for the average commuter, if there are any, or pass up this option and spend our hard-earned tax dollars on highway projects that will benefit all of us.

I'm always stunned that people still don't get it. We live in a capitalistic democratic republic. Fluor stands to make huge profits by orchestrating this deal which will drag out for years and years. They spend huge amounts of money on lobbying politicians through various pacs, fronts, backroom deals, etc. An idea doesn't have to be good for the people. An idea has to have a payout. Politicians, once they leave office, always have a cushy place to land after the public job. Get it? Its not really about efficiency. Its about profitability. Exactly like the hybrid scam. Its nothing new that those making the rules have a financial stake. Sheesh. How else can I say it?

I asked one of my reps once if they were ever approached by the hybrid lobby. He told me no one ever lobbied him. I believed him-still do. Later, after I had a chance to think about it, (I'm sort of slow on the uptake), I realized the lobbyists got to his people or his pac or his wife. Slippery folks these pols. all dressed up in the flag.

How do building toll booths help the environment?

NoSUV, whether or not you meant it, what you wrote implied that helping the environment and tolls (what this thread is about, or did you forget that because you only seem to chime in whenever someone says something about about your precious hybrid exemptions) somehow go together. Please think before you write as you waste so many people's time with your nonsense garbage.

It's interesting that, independent of this forum, someone in F'burg makes a good argument and came up with some very good questions regarding the lunacy of HOT lanes.

Some nuggets of brilliance:

"...there is no information regarding how much of the $913 million (2003 estimate) our tax dollars will cover." "...the taxpayers will pay most of the costs."
"I don't see these numbers (HOT fares) being much help to low- and middle-income Interstate 95 travelers."
And finally, "The average commuter on the HOV/HOT lanes will have to endure frequent delays and inconveniences during construction, put up with more single-occupant Mercedes and BMWs (who else can pay more than $7,000 annually to commute?), and pay more taxes, while Fluor Virginia and Transurban USA get wealthier, and upper-income commuters avoid the traffic at our expense."

It seems to me that many other people may feel the same way and have the same questions. This is a good thing! People generally don't like being taken advantage of, and that is what this boondoggle is; a scam by VDOT to avoid the fiscal responsibility of highway maintenance made possible by our elected officials.

It also makes sense that the likes of NoSUV would support such a crime against average Joe the taxpayer. However, it is unfortunate that NoSUV is not as convincing as this neutral F'burg commuter. Contradiction doen not an argument make, NoSUV.

How exactly does a toll road promote SULEV vehicles, let alone an ecological initiative?
How does blindly voting with your party make you anything more than a sheep being lead to the slaughter?