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It's In The Wrong Location ...
... they already have perfectly functional toll collection facilities on the Tobin Bridge. This new array should be installed on the Lower Deck to collect tolls from traffic entering Boston on I-93 from the north, with a second gantry at the Neponset River Bridge to collect tolls from traffic entering Boston on I-93 from the south.
It's not fair to impose expensive highway tolls on just some commuters, while other commuters pay no toll at all. Spending money to "improve" toll collection on the Tobin Bridge, while leaving all the other routes wide open, adds insult to this unfairness.
Wrong forum
Instead of complaining to us, do something functional and speak to someone that could make a decision like that. Why do we need to hear whining?
Your Head Must Whine Like A Jet Engine ...
... if you perceive every voiced opinion or remark at Universal Hub as a personally directed complaint.
You have no idea how many people I've spoken to about the toll unfairness over the years. However, in addition to government officials, public awareness and concern is needed to garner support to effect change.
So, what is your opinion on the subject? Do you think I-93 should remain toll free, but spending money for a new toll system on the Tobin Bridge is a good thing? The point of these forums is to exchange thoughts and ideas.
(or did you just come here to whine?)
Sounds like you just need to move
Or, you'd just feel better paying your toll if you knew everyone else was paying too. When you get sick, do you make sure to spread the germs just so you know you are not alone in your misery?
Adorable!
.
I happen to agree with Elmer
And I use I-93 to commute into the city because the transit system has become so expensive and unreliable because a bunch of idiots from Western Mass decided that the transit system should pay for what wasn't completed on a federal contract (but was required) due to overruns on a highway project.
I can get to Boston City Hall without paying a fare or a toll. Elmer can't - AND HE LIVES IN BOSTON.
Please get a grip and a clue. Even those of us who benefit most from the Big Overrun should pay for it.
MassDOT Study
MassDOT did a study on toll collection. The studied all limited access highways. At just $1 per car, and assuming the Feds allow them to toll as they please, and they actually do toll all studied locations, they could generate somewhere around $10billion per year. Which could pay for a Big Dig every two years.
New Toll Collection apparatus
New Toll Collection apparatus
Hope this is being challenged
I refuse to get an E-ZPass / RFID location tracker, even though they are scanning license plates everywhere anyways. Plus I want the toll-takers to keep their jobs, out of tradition and in defiance of "efficiency."
Yes!!!
And we should have to catch our woolly mammoths with stick and spear too!
*face palm*
Get used to it, toll takers are thing of the past.
Agree, Deselby
But maybe for a partially different reason.
Building new infrastructure for toll-taking, and requiring everyone to get a transponder, institutionalizes tolls and makes it 99.99% unlikely that they will ever not be collected. There are still some of us - not all wooly mammoth hunters, either - who recall that tolls were instituted as a supposedly temporary measure on certain roads, and we still hold the entirely unreasonable hope that they may someday be done away with.
(Feel free to start the "How will we pay for the roads - Cars don't pay nearly their fair share" arguments. I'm taking the rest of the weekend off, so feel free to flame away.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
You could just get rid of the machines too though right?
Easier than firing people.
Maybe this is how the Terminator movies started?
Really?
Removing a few readers and a metal arch is harder than removing an entire set of cement tollbooths?
We couldn't just turn them off and it would go back to being a free road? If you "turn off the tollbooths" they still block up the road.
So, you hate to see this because it makes it *easier* to restore the road to normal should the tolls go away?
No
One way or the other, the tollbooths will be removed. That is not germane to the argument at all.
The problem I have is with every car on the road having to be equipped with a transponder. That's the part that institutionalizes tolls.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Any good maps of the Leverett Connector & Zakim w/ nearby ramps?
Where are good maps of the Zakim Bridge and Leverett Connector with nearby ramps?
Google maps
Yahoo maps. There are a lot of mapping apps out there.
Oh, and the official highway map of Massachusetts if you want it in print.
City Square Tunnel
Why didn't they didn't use the existing toll plaza? OR why couldn't they install it at the entrance of the city square tunnel? Seems to make more sense since you would have one sets of tolls instead of two.
Also wonder how they plan on dealing with the cars stopped under it while waiting for the light at the end of the exit ramp to Rutherford Ave, so cars are not charged twice while they sit there. (of course a time delay before recharge is probably why but still..)
Two reasons
1) Easier access for installation and maintenance
2) Better tracking of which ramp all the traffic is going
3) (My opinion) To set different rates based on which ramp you take (Not any time soon, but future-proofing for this)
yeah that's kinda what i was thinking
More so they could remove the 93 ones once 93 goes pay (if it ever does)
NYC
This is what they did at the Henry Hudson in the Bronx. You don't stop and you pay by license plate if you don't have EZPass. But you still have to slow down quite a bit because you have to pass through the old toll structures. This should allow for much higher speed access, so delays are only due to volume not booths.