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Why did the chicken cross Beacon Street?
By adamg on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 10:25pm
Is that woman flipping him the bird?
Flush with the success of their effort to completely bollix up the turnpike by paying tolls in pennies (oh, wait, that didn't work too well, did it?), the Stop the Pike Hike people are now having a guy in a chicken suit follow Deval Patrick around until he agrees to a debate on the merits of KFC vs. Burger King the proposed massive turnpike toll hike. He is shown here waiting for Patrick to exit the State House.
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Comments
Playing chicken with the
Playing chicken with the Gov. is not going to work. We'll have increased tolls and a gas tax hike no doubt.
Report from a toll-increase hearing
Margalit attended, spoke at one of those hearings last night and files this report.
from margalit's
from margalit's post:
The proposed increase [from Newton?] is 60%, which is an extraordinarily high one-time increase. But her math is way off. The annual increase in dollar is no where near what she calculates. Even if a person commuted on the Pike 365 days a year from her town, the cost increase would be
(365 * $1.50) = $547.50 a year, if they commuted
five days a week (52*5 * $1.50) = $390 increase a year. $400 a year is $33 a month. Yeah, it sucks but it's probably affordable for a large percentage of east bound mass pike commuters.
Margarita does note the problem of increased local traffic but fails to identify another effect of raising the tolls. More commuters will consider taking the MBTA train.
What is patently unfair about the toll increase is that it charges for travel from the west only, and not the north or the south, when a huge percentage of the cost of the project was the the north south central artery through Boston.
The harbor tunnel toll increase is where the real action is, in my opinion.
If you commute to Boston by vehicle from East Boston five days a week your commute will increase (5*52 * $7) = $1820 a year. $150 a month. I can see why East Bostonians and other north shoreline commuters are pissed.
Masspike seems to think they can target the increases at the most expensive part of the transportation system (tunnels) but it is patently unfair to charge East Boston commuters for central artery construction costs when people who drive the central artery from 93 north and Rt 3 south pay $0 in tolls.
The only way to equitably apply tolls to pay debt on central artery and harbor tunnel construction and maintenance costs is to erect north south tolls. The Commonwealth does not have the balls to do this. I think they should and I think they should make the toll affordable from all four directions, $2 each way.
INSTEAD, I believe Masspike will relent on the 100% increase for harbor tunnel use. North shoreline commuters will get a more reasonable increase and we'll all pay an increased Commonwealth-wide gas tax to pay for the big dig. If so, the increase gas tax must be appropriated equitably so that towns of drivers West of 495 benefit with direct cash allocations to roads and bridges or other transportation costs, such as plowing and highway patrol.